Getting Old

My Grandmother (maternal type, not that she's particularly maternal, she's just not a paternal grandmother) is getting old.  She's in her mid 80s and had outlived her husband, which is astonishing, as he was always the "I can do anything sort" and she was always the "I tripped, so now I need to take to bed sort."

Grandma is also pretty oblivious to the likes and dislikes of those around her.  I'd like to say this is due to age, but the truth is that that has always been the case. 

Grandma visited us in the early summer, right in the middle of us preparing to move.  Let's just say that we did not instigate this visit.  This is how we were living when she came:

We didn't have a kitchen table, a couch, or, really, any furniture beyond beds and camp chairs.  Grandma is used to a certain amount of comfort and I was really concerned about this visit.  She did hold up surprisingly well to the conditions, but it was still a rough visit. 

She came to see this, though, which I guess I can understand, as she's pretty cute:

It was Davan's spring recital weekend.  She had two she was in.  In one, she was a girl in a sun dress.  In the other, she was a jester.  Well, she was also in a white ballet outfit, but she was much happier as the jester, which was also a solo part, so that was the bigger deal.

Of course, Davan usually dresses more like this:

(These were the horse chestnuts, which we didn't eat, but, at this point, thought they were the eatable chestnuts.  Sigh.)  Any-who, she's a yoga pants, cotton shirt sort of person.  In fact, while she did wear the occasional pair of capri leggins over the summer, she's rarely found not in yoga pants and a cotton shirt.  Everyday.

So, the point of all this is that Grandma was here just a few months ago and that Davan wears yoga pants constantly and is in no way shape or form anywhere near a girly-girl at this point in her life.  

Wait!  One more thing to point out.  Grandma knows that we are difficult to buy gifts for.  You see, she gave Davan a pair of purple flip flops when she visited and was distraught that Davan never wore them (never mind that the weather was in the 60s tops - we had a very late summer).  She made such a fuss about it that I finally said that Davan wouldn't be wearing them as she can't really stand things between her toes or shoes that flop around on her.  Grandma didn't like that a bit.  

Couple that with the fact that about a year prior, we returned matching nightgowns she'd purchased for Davan and I (they were $100 and we were never going to wear them - I couldn't stand the waste!), and Grandma finally got the point that we were hard to buy for.  In fact, she complained about that while she was here.  My mom, who was also visiting, said, "Yes, I know.  I only buy them stuff I've specifically seen them long for or get them gift certificates."  She, though, was cool about it, not pissy.

So, where am I going with all this?  Well, here's what came in the mail today from Grandma:

It's for Davan.  Not only is it shockingly not her style (jester aside), it's also a size 11/12.  Davan is a size 2 or so.  Grandma did, considerately, enclose a $10 check for alterations if necessary.

I'm a little dumbfounded.  I still think I'm going to make Davan put it on, though.  Stay tuned to see if I can force her into a picture.  Then, I believe, we'll send it to her friend Emma's house to live in there costume box. 

Books, Books, Books

I finished a book last night and was suddenly faced with a book shortage.  I had nothing on hold at the library and, worse, nothing waiting to be read at home.  Not to mention the fact that the library doesn't even open until noon and my morning walk with a friend got canceled.  (Don't fret, Ranger still got to go for a walk.  However, it was only an hour long rather than the three or so hours it takes to walk with our friend, once you factor in walking to the meeting point and back home.  And, yes, it was a walk this morning because I'm supposed to cross train on Wednesdays.  Happy now?  Can I go back to my story?)

So, here I was, at 10:00am, walk done, breakfast made, eaten and cleaned up, house totally clean (okay, not so much on that one, but it's not in bad shape and the laundry is all caught up, at least), and a new resolve not to have so much screen time.  What to do?  Sure, Davan and I could have played a game or something, but I was not in the mood.  I was wanting a good book.

We headed off to Powell's Bookstore with a pad of paper and a pen.  Or, at least, I had a pad of paper and a pen.  Davan bummed a pencil and a piece of paper off of me once we got there.  Anyway, we went to browse.  We spent an hour and a half roaming Powell's (this smaller one on Hawthorne, not City of Books one downtown), writing down titles that caught our respective eyes.  We've both found that we discover a great many more books we want to read when browsing book stores than when browsing the library, particularly here at our new library, which, while still nice and able to get any book from our nice big library system, is much smaller than what we had in Gresham.

We came home with nice long lists that we each then spent some time putting holds on.  And, it turned out, a couple of each of ours were in at our library, so we went and picked them up.  Soon, we'll be flooded with books to read.  Whew.  What a relief. 

So, what's on our lists?  Well, mine, at least, are quite an eclectic list and I have no real idea if they're good, but here are some of them:

The Man Who Cycled the World by Mark Beaumont
Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell
At Home by Bill Bryson
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister
The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card
Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler

And, ahem, it did turn out one book I'd previously put on hold was in.  Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs.  This is the one I've actually started (although I haven't gotten very far yet between making lunch, walking the dog again, gathering chestnuts with Davan and preparing them to roast, then figuring out they were actually horse chestnuts and, thus, not eatable, but then finding out about a real chestnut tree close by that we're going to try to harvest from another day because today she has a new friend from Do Jump over - she's an exchange student from Switzerland, cool, no? and writing this blog entry).  This is the third book in her Mercy Thompson series.  I'm enjoying them in a feeling kind of guilty way.  After all, they're about werewolves and vampires and such - so faddy these days.  Still, they're compelling reads for me so far.  We'll see how long that lasts, as I often find that I start to loose interest in series after a few.

On Davan's list?  Well, let me see if she's willing to share.  She is, but she didn't write down authors.  Here are some of her titles:

Time Riders
The Friendship Doll
Shadow Children (this one has lots of exclamation marks by it - now I'm going to have to look it up)
Awaken
The Happiness Project (I've read this and liked it - check it out, but didn't know it was on her list until now)
The Golden Compass (I've read this one, too, but, at the time didn't think Davan was ready for it)
Things Not Seen
Nowhere Girl

We used to read a lot of the same things.  Of course, when she was young, I read her everything.  But, then, when she was an independent reader, she started with books that didn't really interest me, so we didn't overlap on everything, but still read some together and the like.  Next, though, came a phase where we read almost all of the same things.  We read a lot of book group books because we were in three different book groups together.  And, for whatever reason, I seemed to read mostly young adult books during that time.  It was nice to pass books back and forth and to talk about them.

Now, though, we're back to mostly independent reading.  I say back to, but, really, it's new just how much separate we are in our reading.  If nothing else, we were always listening to something together in the car.  Now, though, we don't drive much and don't have an ongoing car book.  I've been, gasp, reading a lot of adult books.  Most of Davan's choices aren't interesting me again.  Most of what I'm reading she's not interested in or ready for.

One of the authors I've recently revisited that Davan isn't ready for yet, but is interested in from what I've told her, is Octavia Butler, who's one of my all time favorite authors.  Two of my particular favorites by her are Fledgling and The Parable of the Sower.  If your haven't read them, you should!  Well, unless you're 13 and sensitive to suffering, then you might want to wait a few years for The Parable of the Sower.  And, if you're 13 and sensitive to what originally seems like it might be inappropriate sex (although not too graphic), then you might want to wait a few years for Fledgling.  Yeah, okay, Octavia Butler writes for mature audiences.  If you're a mature reader, though, pick them up!

We're booked up and ready to roll.  I think I'll go read a bit before starting dinner.  Who-hoo!

Our Dirty Little Screen Habit

Before Davan was born, Anthony and I were big TV watchers and movie goers.  I felt vaguely guilty about watching a lot of TV, but I was a big motivator for going to the movies.  I loved them.  We'd see at least one a weekend in the theater and often rent one, as well.

Then Davan was born.  All that changed.  I went to the movie theater all of maybe three times the first year after she was born.  We didn't watch at much TV at home, as she was pretty darn demanding of our attention.  I felt bereft.  Truly.  It was sad.  We'd drive by a movie theater and I'd look with longing at all the cars, wishing I was going to a movie. 

Then a funny thing happened, though.  We started getting time to maybe watch a movie in the evening after Davan went to bed, rather than me needing to crash the moment she did.  And...many of them weren't that good.  I had, gasp, outgrown most movies.  And TV was worse.  And Davan, unlike most preschoolers, wasn't interested in watching TV/videos/movies/playing video games.  While I still nursed a strong computer habit and we would watch something from time to time, we were pretty TV free for a while.

Next, though, Davan got interested in movies.  I think she was about 4 or 5 when this happened.  We entered our Disney stage.  Sure, other animated kid movies, too, but you know what I mean.  Screen time picked up quite a bit.  Davan enjoyed whiling away an afternoon with movies, if allowed. 

It got to the point where I wanted to make a change.  We did manage to ween back off of so much screen time.  However, we've fluctuated a lot in the years since.  There was probably a whole year that we only watched a movie once a week and that was literally it as far as using the TV was concerned.  Other times, well, there was Survivor on Thursdays, Amazing Race on Sundays, a video in the afternoon here and there for Davan and maybe a couple of movie nights.  We did seem to find a balance with winters being more screen heavy and summers being less so...

Lately, though, the TV monster has reared it's ugly head.  We've been streaming from Netflix.  We've been getting movies from the library.  And TV shows from the library.  And even renting sometimes from a local video store.  I'm not totally sure when this all started, but it was before we moved.  Saturday and Sunday evening dinner/movie nights have turned into most nights that Davan isn't at Do Jump or we're not having company.  I even found a TV show that I was watching on my own when Anthony and Davan weren't around.  I won't even fess up to what that one was, as it embarrasses me a little a lot.

One of our biggest family draws lately, though, I will fess up to.  We have become total Glee junkies.  We just discovered Glee this summer, really after the move, and we're all hooked.  In fact, we are so hooked that we caught up by finishing up season two in mid September in time to start season three with it's broadcast. 

Now, there are a couple of problems with just watching it as broadcast.  I'm not even sure we get Fox here with our, basically, rabbit ears, for one.  But, it's also broadcast on Tuesdays when Davan is at Do Jump.  And there are commercials.  Hello?  Commercials?  That's just painful.

We did some looking around and decided that we'd watch the show the following Wednesday.  It's available for streaming on Fox's website 8 days after broadcast, for the general public.  The show premiered.  We waited with bated breath for the following Wednesday and, on the given night, excitedly (seriously) settled down to watch. 

It sucked big time.  There were still commercials and, worse, they didn't cut them well, so they would come on just before a scene ended and, after the commercial, we'd see the last two seconds of the scene.  Seriously?  And the whole world seemed to be trying to stream it that night, as well, because the picture quality sucked big time.  It was very choppy and would just stop for 10 seconds at a time every now and then.  We tried pausing to let it buffer, but there was no buffering and it was worse trying to start it back up.

We discussed options.  Just waiting until it came out on DVD, while I did bring it up, was quickly shot down.  So, now, we are subscribers on Amazon to Glee season 3.  On the up side, we get to watch it the very next evening (the first time post broadcast that we're all together), there are no commercials and the streaming is decent.  We can even download if we want to, which helps, as we don't have the fastest connection in the world.

The down side?  We're subscribing to a TV show - paying to watch it and waiting with bated breath each week.  That's kind of fun, but it's also sad for a family who once prided themselves on being pretty darn near TV free. 

Factor in the fact that we watched the whole season of The Glee Project in one day on a recent Sunday (okay - Davan had a cold and Anthony had an injury, so it was going to be a down day anyway) and the fact that most nights are movie night and it's pretty pathetic. 

We're a pretty in touch family.  Davan and I spend all day together, after all, and the child, tells me everything (even if I don't really want to know the finer details of her "conversation" about cats with her best Do Jump buds - I say conversation loosely, as it really seems to consist of suddenly surprising each other with the word "cats" throughout practice) so it's not that we so much need to reconnect over dinner.  Of course, we don't spend all that time with Anthony, but, well, the man, when asked about his day, usually says "fine".  "Fine" does not a dinner conversation make, I have to say.  And we do spend a lot of family time together on weekends and often all walking Ranger in the evening together, which seems to be an easier way for us to have a conversation.

All this is justification, though.  Justification for just popping in a video and plopping on the couch every evening.

We may be coming to a natural end to such a push of screen time, actually.  Netflix streaming is new to us - we've only been doing it a few months now - and we're coming to the end of things that are drawing us in.  We just had a run of movies off a list I stumbled across.  We're about done with those and, the last several we've either only watched the first 10 minutes before going, "Nope, none of us want to watch this," or, as with last night's movie, leaving Anthony to it when only he was interested.  We've caught up with Glee, so it's a once a week sort of thing now...other than episode rewatching, which, yes, is happening, too.  Still, the point is that we probably are getting to the point where there aren't so many movies/episodes of shows clamoring to be watched.

So, we've had a run of couch potato-ism.  That's okay.  But, it's time to dust off our games and other hobbies and, maybe, conversational skills and put them all to use.  We can do it. We're strong.  Not addicts at all.  We can stop anytime we want.

Pain Update

I'm going to answer a comment with a whole new post, rather than in the comments.  My mom asked about Davan's toes, her back and my abdominal pain.

Davan's toes are fine.  Not hurting at all.  Not going to the podiatrist was a good call on that one.

Davan's back is...getting better.  We went to the chiropractor for the first visit on Tuesday two weeks ago now.  The chiropractor, whom we liked pretty well, talked to Davan, which made Davan all stressed out with trying to explain her pain, then examined Davan in a variety of different positions and with a variety of different pressures.

What she discovered was that Davan's pelvis is not aligned.  The left side is kind of tilted back at the top.  So, she's been working on realigning her pelvis.  She's also given Davan certain exercises to do at home, which Davan has been pretty hit and miss about, to be honest.  Davan has gone back twice - once more that first week and then once the next week.  Her chiropractor says that some bodies respond pretty readily to adjustment while others take some more treatments to respond.  Davan will be going back again this Friday.  And, now that we've met our deductible, thanks to my little ER trip, it's really cheap to take her. 

Davan said that she didn't notice a difference at first, but that last week, she noticed that while she still had pain during back bends, it wasn't as bad.  So, I guess we'll keep it up.

As for me, well, it definitely wasn't mittlesmerch after all because it's still not totally gone.  I'm back to thinking it's a pulled muscle, which is what I originally thought right up to when it did the sharp increase in pain while I was sitting still. 

It is nearly gone now, but any engaging of my abdominals definitely brought it back on.  Yesterday was the first day that I didn't really notice it pretty much all day.  I'm a little nervous about going to strength training at Do Jump tomorrow morning in case doing the core work (which is what most of it is) aggravates it and sets me back.  I haven't decided what to do about that yet.  I'm leaning toward not going tomorrow and being really ready to go back next week, but I hate to miss another week.

What's been good, though, is after the first few days, I've been able to run with no real backlash and, after the first couple days, walking wasn't really an issue, either.

So, that's the pain update - all is getting better, which is good, but not gone, which isn't so great.

I've Gone and Done It

I've been all over the map in regards to exercise for quite a while now.  Sometimes I take classes at Do Jump, which is great for flexibility and strength.  I've been running in a here and there, no cohesive plan sort of way.  I go for a lot of walks.  I take an occasional bike ride.  In the spring, I was getting in the pool to swim a couple times a week for a while.  I often do a little stretching routine at home.  Sometimes I do strength work at home.  But, I have no real plan.  No real goal.  Everything is a bit hit or miss. 

In the spring, I'd been planning on doing a marathon length tri this summer, but...well, I let that slip to be honest.  I went to China for two weeks (I should blog about that trip sometime, no?) and then never really got back on track.  This was due in part to the move, in part to getting a couple of colds, in part to just loosing focus.

So, I've been thinking.  What should my goal be and how should I get there?  I really like being in great shape.  I like the way my body looks and feels when I'm in good shape and I want to be in even better shape.  I also want a real goal, something I'll feel proud about having accomplished.

A friend of mine is doing an ironman tri next summer.  I'm so freakn' impressed with her.  She's older than me, too, by 10 years.  And she just started back into doing tris last summer with a sprint length tri, so it's not like she's been doing this all along. 

This made me ponder the possibility of doing one myself.  But, the truth of the matter is that I'm having a really hard time motivating myself to get into the pool and, frankly, I'm more than a bit overwhelmed with the training plans that go along with an ironman.  Perhaps I'd need a trainer to help me figure it out.  Tris are expensive sports already, without adding on the cost of a trainer.  All this could just be excuses, I'm not naive, but I'm just not feeling it.

Pondering on what I can do that both will help me to be in great shape, fits into my life and will feel like a real accomplishment, I've come up with this goal:  I'm going to do the Portland Marathon next year. 

A marathon, while no ironman, is still a pretty good accomplishment, particularly as the run is the hardest part of a tri for me.  I've never done an organized run of longer than 5K, so this is a pretty big deal.  I think the longest run, even unorganized, I've ever done is about 5 miles.  This will be a big step up for me, making it a good thing for me to work toward.

Training for a marathon will definitely help with the whole being in shape thing.

And it fits into my life.  For most of the runs, I can take Ranger.  When I do track work, I won't take her, but that's probably only going to be once a week.  Oh, and later, I do plan on doing some of the group runs for the Portland Marathon and Ranger won't come to those, either, but, you know, for the most part.

Meanwhile, though, I want to be motivated now.  I'm actually thinking I'll do a marathon in the spring, as well.  I'm looking at this one or this one.  I want to do one in the spring, train some more and see if I can improve my time for the Portland Marathon in the fall.

And for immediate motivation, I've just signed up for the Give n' Gobble 10K.  It's in less than eight weeks.  I've already started a training plan.  I'm following this one with some modifications to fit my schedule.  I'll be doing it all, just with the days scrambled up a bit.  I debated between this intermediate plan and the beginner plan, as, after all, I've never done a 10K and my 5Ks have been mostly in conjunction with tris, but the beginner one didn't seem like enough of a challenge for me.

On the schedule, at week 4, there is a 5K race scheduled.  I'm considering this one.  You should follow the link.  Fun, no?  It's closer to the 4 week mark than this one, which looks like fun, too, and is a little closer, so I haven't totally decided about that yet.

So far, I've actually signed up to do the one race - the Give n' Gobble 10K.  It's two days prior to my 40th birthday and I like the idea of it being my birthday run.  I'm excited.  I'm also a little nervous about the distances I'll be running each week in my training plan, but I'm pretty sure I can do it.  I'm glad to have a goal and a set thing to work toward with a plan, as that really focuses me.  Here I go!

Midweek Adventure

Davan and I set off on an adventure yesterday afternoon.  It actually took some convincing to get Davan out of the house.  The poor kid hasn't been sleeping well and has been kind of tired.  Plus, at least this is my theory, she tends to want to save her energy for Thursdays and Fridays, which, admittedly, are very busy with lots of physically active things. 

Thursdays, for example, look like this:  Up at 7:00, shower, dress, breakfast and out the door by 8:15 to ride 5.5 miles to Trackers.  Trackers from 9:00-4:00 with lots of tromping about in the woods, followed by the 5.5 miles ride back home.  She gets home in time to have a bite to eat, tell me a little about her day and then is off again by 5:15 to walk over to Do Jump for Zig Zags from 5:30-7:00, followed immediately by advanced aerial composition from 7:00-9:00.  After walking home, she has a snack and then pretty much goes to bed.

Friday isn't quite as packed, but still busy and holds her most physically challenging class of the week, straps.

Anyway, back to Wednesday.  After I pried her out of the house with a crowbar, we had a very nice afternoon.  We walked through Fred Meyer's on the way to the bus stop (we debated bikes vs bus - bikes would actually have been quicker and I am not a fan of the bus - it makes me nauseous, but Davan was, as mentioned, feeling tired, and she really wanted to ride the street car, which was part of the route, so we went bus) to pick up two cans of food (more on that later).

We hopped on the bus and Davan started reading.  Crazy if you ask me, but she didn't.  I listened to my MP3 player, but still felt nauseous by the end of the ride.

Downtown, we transferred to the street car.

We enjoyed standing for the ride, which usually helps me feel better, and made it easier for Davan to hang from the stanchions.  We all have our priorities.

Then we rode the tram, which was our main reason for heading out yesterday.  We had a Groupon for the tram that was set to expire tomorrow and we did not have time to do it today (see Thursday's schedule).

The tram goes up to OHSU, which is on top of a hill, and has been there a few years now.  Davan has been asking to ride it since it was built.  Better late than never, no?

It was a fun ride with good views.  We just went up, went out on the sky bridge, got Odwalla juices and rode back down.

Then we got back on the streetcar and rode until we got to a selection of food carts, something like this (not my picture):

We got a couple things to share - pumpkin curry and fried rice, both with lots of veggies and tofu.  We got back on the street car and rode to our stop, where we found a place to sit and eat.

Davan and I both liked the pumpkin curry the best.

She kind of hogged it.  She doesn't look repentant.

After our late lunch, we went here.  Now, Davan, even at 13, is a huge Safari Sam's fan.  She and three of her buddies spent 6 hours there one day this summer.  I was the lucky parent who got to take them that day.  Don't worry, though, I had my laptop, wifi access and a book.  Other than a sore but from the wooden bench, I was okay.

Safari Sam's is even cooler than it looks in the pictures at their website.  There is a black diamond challenge course and lots to do for physical kids.  And parents.  I can fit in their jungle gym pretty well.  I'm happy when Davan has friends to roam with, though, as I get worn out/bored much faster than she.

Any-who, Safari Sam's is a fair drive from here and this place, PlayDate PDX is not too far from here - decent bike riding distance, even.  And, yesterday, they had a canned food drive.  If you brought two cans of food per kid, it was free.  Awesome chance to check it out.

Davan would have had more fun with friends, but she did play with a little boy...who then started to annoy her, but wouldn't go away...and wanted to stay for a couple hours.

Her general review, though, was not bad, but not nearly as good as Safari Sam's.  Sadly, she doesn't want to change her birthday party location.  Yes, she's nearly got her December birthday all planned out.

After romping (turns out she had some available energy, after all, hmmmm), we headed back to the street car, where she actually wanted to sit - shocking!

We ended up just missing our bus at one stop and sprinted four city blocks to catch it at it's next stop.  We're pretty awesome, no?

Davan was in serious need of a drink once we boarded.

But it wasn't long until she was settled in with her book once more.

Davan ended up being so glad we'd gone and had a ton of fun.  I had a very nice afternoon, too, and didn't even feel bad about sitting and reading while she played, as I'd gone on a two hour walk/hike that morning. 

Neighbors

Mostly, even though we live in a pretty population dense area, the view out our windows isn't bad.  Mostly, in fact, it's trees.

This is the view from the living room, looking out the slider:

It's not the best, but it's okay.  Out the living room in the back, though, it's just trees:

Davan has a nice view from her bedroom window.  She actually chose the smaller room because of the view.  We'd told her when we moved in that she could choose because she spends more time in her room than we do and we figured we could fit into either.  It turned out to be a good thing that we got the bigger room because it came with the bigger closet that we don't think we could manage without, as it has a lot of the family stuff in it - some camping gear, the vacuum cleaner, bike stuff.  

Anyway, this is her view:

Then there's our room.  From one angle, it's very similar to Davan's view:

Licorice enjoys the view.  However, from the other angle, it's this:

 

This house is a project in work.  The guy who lives here is out often, working on it.  When he is, we are treated to a running swear filled commentary.  Sometimes he and his wife (girlfriend? partner?) argue while he's working.  And he's a sight to behold.  I should try to get a picture, but suffice it to say that he's not slender and he doesn't really believe in wearing more than shorts.

Sometimes we find him bothersome, but mostly he's sort of entertaining.  A bit of flavor in the neighborhood.  Last night, though, at midnight, when he was out with his flood lights on, rustling around with plastic (presumably to cover up some projects before the rain came last night), it was really, really annoying.  I was having trouble sleeping last night anyway and this really didn't help.

On the other hand, our downstairs neighbors seem to be gone for the weekend.  They enjoy music turned up pretty loud and movies played pretty darn loud until late at night.  So, perhaps things even out.  If it weren't for That Guy, it'd be Downstairs' People keeping me up.  Perhaps I'm just looking to blame someone for the fact that I couldn't sleep. 

After all, I've adjusted pretty well, really.  The Downstairs' People's movie usually doesn't bother me, although it does still seem to really piss Anthony off.  And, as mentioned, That Guy is sort of entertaining.  All-in-all, it's just part of getting used to moving.  It's not like we didn't have loud neighbors before (the guy who had sports watching parties out in the back yard complete with plenty of yelling until all hours comes to mind), it's just different.  

Welcome to the neighborhood.

Ranger's Bed

This may look like Davan's new bed in Davan's new room, but if you thought so, you'd be wrong. 

It's Ranger's bed.  Now, this is all Davan's fault, as Davan was the one to invite Ranger onto her bed when it was still hers.  Sleeping with Ranger was one of the things about the move that Davan was really looking forward to.  See, her previous bed, while cat friendly, wasn't Ranger friendly.

 

Ladders are not great for dogs, generally speaking.

So, upon moving, Davan invited Ranger up onto her bed.  At first, Ranger didn't believe her.  She was too well trained to not get on beds and she wouldn't get up, thinking she was maybe being tricked.  However, Davan was persistent.  She lured Ranger up with treats.  For a week or so, Ranger would only get up at bedtime, after having been invited up by Davan.

Davan, wanting Ranger up there more, started training her to get up during the day.  She had to repeat the treat lure at first.  It wasn't long, though, before Ranger realized that Davan was telling her that she had a new bed.  So much for the comforter on the floor!  (Not to mention that one of the cats, who's since had to find a new home, was making a litter box of Ranger's comforter.)  No, she had a full fledged bed!  What a deal!  

Now, most of the time, you can find Ranger on Ranger's bed.  Davan has to fight for space when she wants it.  All-in-all, Davan is pretty happy about this, enjoying the cuddle time with Ranger and feeling they've got a special bond.  There are those time, though, that Davan will complain about being rabbit kicked during the night (although, now that I think about it, she hasn't complained about that in a while - perhaps she's learned to sleep through that event) or that she goes into her room and finds the bed like this:

Ranger likes to make herself comfortable.  Davan would prefer the bed stayed made.  

Siblings.  What's a mother to do?

A Very Expensive Evening Out

Last night, feeling like our quiet family time wasn't quite enough excitement, we all went out, staying out till the wee hours and spending a whole lot 'a greenbacks.  That's right, ladies and gents, we went to the....wait for it, it's so exciting....ER!!!! 

I tell you, if you've got a few hundred spare dollars (we have a high deductible policy and an HSA that is down to the dregs due to a certain family member's orthodontist habit)

and feel like not getting a good night's sleep in your own bed, go on down to the ER.  It's tons of fun and you're sure to meet some interesting folk like, oh, say, gang members, drunks having taken a bit of spill, a poor old man who doesn't want to keep his IV in and many more.

So, what prompted this fun-filled family evening out?  Well, first let me say that everyone is okay, although I'm still, sadly, in pain, it doesn't seem to be life threatening and will hopefully sort itself out.

It was all about me because that's how I roll.  So, I first thought that I'd pulled a muscle in my lower abdomen the right side.  I woke up yesterday morning when pulling my knees up to curl up resulted in a shooting pain.  It ebbed and I went back to sleep, waking to a dull ache (with occasional stabs of pain that I couldn't really predict) which lasted until about 3:30pm.  Davan and I were playing around, wrestling a bit, when the pain suddenly became very intense and overwhelming.

While it backed off again, the pain continued at an elevated level until I downed a 400mg Advil with dinner around 6:00pm.  I felt better once that kicked in right up until I was sitting totally still, not coughing or sneezing or anything, when the seriously stabbing pain started back up.  I started looking up possible diagnosis for my symptoms and the thing that kept coming up was appendicitis.

However, I wasn't convinced.  I was feeling pretty sure it wasn't just a pulled muscle at this point, but I had no idea what it was and was getting a bit worried.  We called the advice nurse.  She told us to head to the ER with some haste.  Sigh.

It wasn't appendicitis.  We don't know what it was.  But, I got to spend until 2:30am this morning peeing in a cup, having blood drawn, telling my story to about 6 different people, wearing a hospital gown, convincing Anthony and Davan to come home and get some sleep, reading in a snazzy hospital bed, having an ultrasound (both externally and, to my delight, internally) and listening to the stories of many varied peoples who also found themselves in the ER last night (this was eavesdropping through the door to my room that no one ever bothered to shut, not actual conversations or anything).

By the time I went home, exhausted and feeling stupid, the pain was pretty manageable again, as it remains today for the most part.  I do sort of feel like shooting myself when I feel a sneeze coming on (seriously painful!) and I can't really do much without pain, but I've been pretty much going about my day. 

What's going on?  I don't really know.  Right now, my strongest contender is mittelschmerz, but if the pain isn't gone by tomorrow morning, it's probably not it.  And this is something I discovered today on my own, not that the doctor came up with.  Great.  So glad I went in.  It seems that usually, doctors aren't needed.  Usually, things work themselves out.  If a doctor is needed, it's usually obvious, like when Anthony's knee was swollen up to twice it's usual size and he was running a high fever or when one's arm looks like this:

and this was the result of the hospital visit:

These things are obvious.  Otherwise, I'm just riding it out.  And hoping that abdominal pain goes away during the night.

Just Hanging

 This seems to be our plan for the afternoon - literally just hanging for some of us.

We'd talked about running a few errands, but...

We seem to be tending toward the lazy.

Except maybe for Licorice, who missed the boat on breakfast this morning and is sitting by the door to the pet food closet, making her displeasure known.

Davan looks like she's having much more fun than she would have been having at the podiatrist having an ingrown toe nail fixed, which was actually on the schedule for this afternoon.

Davan has been having some trouble with ingrown toe nails.  She had to have one cut out in the spring, just before it was performance time for Zig Zags, a dance competition and a trip to Colorado Springs.  We opted to just have it cut off, not permanently altered due to needing a shorter recovery time.  The podiatrist warned us that it would likely grow back, but Davan needed to be on her feet in less than a week, so he agreed with our choice.

This time, it was the big toe on the other foot that has been bothering her off and on.  We finally made an appointment to have a permanent slice taken off that toe nail to prevent it happening again, as it seems to be an issue for her, but three things happened.

1) Today I found some back feedback for the clinic I was taking her to.  Apparently, one of the docs is great, but one is awful and I didn't know which one this appointment was with.

2) I read up on ingrown toe nails and, with the on again off again nature of this complaint, I felt like we could let it work itself out this time.  (Last time, that was not the case, as it was supper painful and infected.)

3) Davan said she'd prefer not to go have the procedure done, as her toe isn't currently hurting, doing the procedure would be painful and she doesn't want to be out of commission for a couple weeks.

We still talked about going out.  I need to go to Trader Joe's.  I'm debating a trip to Winco (we don't have one nearby here and I've been doing most of my shopping by walking to Fred Meyer's, but Winco is a lot cheaper) and a trip to Target/Goodwill/Old Navy to look for a couple of shirts for Davan, who really only has three shirts she's happy to wear. 

But, we've decided to put all that off to tomorrow.  Tomorrow there are more medical procedures to deal with.  Davan has an ortho appointment to adjust those braces and we have to drive out to Gresham for that anyway, so we'll do our shopping then. 

Of course, we can't dawdle too much because we have to be back in our neck of the woods for a 3:00 appointment with a chiropractor.  Davan has been having some lower back pain when she does front walkovers, bridges, even cobra for most of the summer.  We need to see what can be done, other than just not doing these things 'cause that won't work for this kid.

 

So, today, though, at least this afternoon (Davan did teach for 2.5 hours at Do Jump.  I went for an hour long run with Ranger and did chores.  And filled out what turned out to be unnecessary medical forms. ), is just hanging out.  

Davan is pretty excited that she figured out how to make her swing higher so she's at tree height, which is, in addition to slowly moving in a circle, is an important prerequisite to writing in one's notebook.

Veg Fest

This weekend was all about the Veg Fest for us.  We'd actually planned on going to the beach for a night of camping, but the weather forecast was looking pretty crappy, so we scrapped that and, instead, spent the weekend grazing our way through free samples and listening to lectures on the hows and whys of being vegan.  Or, at least, Davan and I did most of the weekend.  Anthony sat out Saturday's trip, but joined us today.

I have to say that we didn't really learn anything new, but it's still motivating and fun to be around a bunch of other vegans or, at least, wannabes.  I did find a new blog, though, that I'm having fun reading.  Check out Peas and Thank You, written by a Portland mom who is going vegan.  Her kids are adorable, her recipes are tasty, particularly for new vegans, and she's pretty funny, too.

I particularly enjoyed two of the speakers.  One was Neal Barnard,who's written a whole slew of books, several of which I've read.  He's clear and entertaining speaker with a good message in my humble opinion.  And the other is Chef AJ, who, while really in your face, is also very entertaining with a good message, as well.

We ran into a family who used to come to the game group I ran for homeschoolers out of our house on Thursdays.  Those kids are not really kid-like anymore.  It's actually the second time I've run into them post game group years and the other time was at Veg Fest two years ago.  It's funny that I had no idea they were so inclined food-wise when they came to game group.

I'm feeling motivated to lean back toward more whole foods, which is something I've been slowly sliding on more and more (case in point, the Newman's Os and Rice Dream habit we've been indulging around here).  We'll see how long that lasts...and I do still eat a lot of whole foods, so it's more about convincing myself not to splurge (so often?  at all?  not sure yet) than to make sweeping changes to my day to day eating.

Independence

Now that we've moved, Davan is getting herself to and from most of her activities.  Soon it will be all of them, but for the moment, I'm going with her for first times to make sure she knows the route and to check her in when necessary. 

This is all great.  However, I can't help but fret some, being a fretting sort of person.  I try to keep my fretting from Davan, as she's angst ridden enough herself.  But, for example, right now her straps class at Night Flight is getting out.  She'll be getting on her bike and riding home.  It's her first ride home from there.  I rode over with her this evening and she was quite confident about the route home.  And she has a cell phone now, so she can call if something goes wrong.  And there is no reason to think that anything bad will happen...but, I'll be glad when she gets home.

I also know that the more that she does these things, the more relaxed I'll be about it.  And the more relaxed she'll be.  She's glad to be independent, but she is anxious about it, as well.  Routine will smooth it all out, though.

It's all just one of those things to adjust to with the move.

Obligatory Update Post

Okay, for anyone who's read before and wants to know, I should do a little update, I suppose. 

The big news is - we've moved!  We're living in just the neighborhood we wanted to and love it.  We only use the car about once a week and were on the verge of just selling it when we changed our minds mostly for camping and skiing reasons. 

We moved in late August, after a very stressful escrow period which nearly ended in us not getting the condo we're in, and we're settling in quite nicely.

Davan is starting up all her fall activities with Do Jump at the top of the list.  She walks herself to Do Jump now and it takes about 7 minutes!!!  Who-hoo!!!  She's teaching two homeschool classes, doing Zig Zags and taking two adult classes.  She's also doing an all day homeschool class every Thursday with TrackersPDX.  That is where she is today and why her room is quiescent.  It's a little odd to have her gone all day.

She's going to be taking a homeschool drama class starting next Friday.  There is also straps class at Night Flight and, of course, time with friends to round out her activities.

All this is will, after she's all settled and getting herself to and from independently, which is in the very near future as she's already riding home from Trackers today by herself, leaves me with a fair amount of spare time that I'm am contemplating how I want to use...

So, there you go, a brief updating and now we'll see where we go from here...

Checking Things Out

Quiescent

To Sell or Not To Sell

Well, really, we are going to sell, the question is what offer will work. Or, now that we've had two offer negotiations turn out to not work out, will we get any more offers? Should we have gone with one of those?

We reduced the price of the house down to the bone - the minimum amount we felt like we could walk away with, which is a sad, sad, paltry amount for having lived here for 10 years and putting in bamboo floors and fancy-shmancy triple pane windows that cost us a fortune while living here. And that brought in offers - two. However, both wanted us to pay all of their closing costs. And one of them also offered under asking, wanted a home warranty and our washer and dryer. We tried to negotiate, but it pretty much came down to they had no more money and we didn't want to be empty handed when all was said and done.

Now, we've decided to up the price, but also say upfront that we'll over a certain amount of closing costs. We'll see how that goes. Interest has continued to be there. We had someone come look yesterday and another showing on Saturday. It's less than the first week after we first did the massive price drop, but still, people are looking.

We're really hoped that we'd have an offer in the bag before I left for China, but that doesn't seem to be what will happen. So, I've left a power of attorney for Anthony so he can accept an offer while I'm gone if he thinks it's a good one.

So, the China thing. Yeah, I'm off to China for two weeks with two of my best high school friends. Being able to go is thanks to my parents who a) took care of my plane flight and b) have come to stay with my family while I'm gone.

It's hard for me to do stuff like this for myself, as I feel somewhat guilty that I'm spending money and it's just for me. It does make for mixed feelings as the date draws close, but I'm trying to just be excited.

Keeping Busy!

We've had a lot of action on the house, including one offer, but no sale yet. The one offer was from the family who looked last weekend, but we were really out of their price range, so their offer was not very good. We did counter offer, but it wasn't enough to make it workable for them, so it was a no go.

However, we had another family look on Saturday, another scheduled showing on Monday (although it appears that one was a no show), yet another scheduled for tomorrow and our realitor has spoken with another realitor about having a showing later this week, but we haven't heard from that person yet. So, lots of interest and we're feeling like an acceptable offer will come our way in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, we're doing a little looking around for the move. We're interested in these places. They'll be ready for move in in August or September, so if we go that way, we'll definitely have to find an interim place to live, which will be challenging with all of the animals. In light of that and feeling like our cats aren't getting the sort of care and attention they deserve, we're looking for good homes for most of them. It's hard because we love them, but we do think it's best for them.

Davan's Tic Toc show kept us very busy over the weekend, especially combined with the various home shows! This is the first day we're not at Do Jump in a week. Whew. The 100 Echos show was great, though. Davan had a ton of fun doing it and loved spending so much time with her friends. She was in a lot of the pieces for the show and really enjoyed the hustle and bustle of it all. She got to do a lot of acting, which was fun and pretty new for her.

Additionally, we've been trying to get out and enjoy the last couple of days that have actually been sunny! Spring is late in coming here in the Pacific Northwest this year and we've yet to have a truly warm day. The last couple have been sunny and knocking on 60, though, so that's been nice.

House Stuff

One of the big things that has happened this year is that we've decided to move. I've blogged about wanting to move before. We've gone back and forth on this for a long time. Looking at houses the time we ended up here, we looked both here in Gresham and in SE Portland, but there were a variety of reasons for ending up here - mostly Anthony's needs in regards to size and having a garage. I didn't hugely object, so here we are.

And, really, it's been fine living here. We like our house quite well. Our neighborhood is nice. There is a park just a couple blocks away. Davan's best friend when she was 4-9ish lives about a quarter mile from here. We can walk into downtown Gresham, which I do frequently, to visit the library. We live in a good place to start long out of city bike rides. We had a great homeschool Girl Scout troop which met just a couple miles from our house for many years and provided us with good friends.

However, there are the down sides, too. Anthony's commute takes him 1 - 1.5 hours each way by bike, bus or MAX (our light rail). I hate yard work and no one else is willing to step up to it, either. The house is larger than our current needs. Most of Davan's interests take us into SE Portland, which means a lot of driving. I really like urban living. I'd love to live closer to downtown. I want to be able to ride/walk most anywhere we want to go. It's really windy here a lot and that actually goes away just 10 miles to the west of us - our target area.

All-in-all, we decided we were ready to move - to heck with the cost and inconvenience of moving. Of course, just now is a bad time to be selling a house. We put the house on the market in October, having invested several months in sprucing it up. We started with too high an asking price - $198,000.

Just after we put the house up, a house nearby, not nearly as nice as ours, went for $168,000 and we were shocked by house cheap it was. It should have been a sign to drop our price significantly. We did drop, but not that much.

Shortly there after, about a dozen houses in our immediate neighborhood went up for sale. Mostly foreclosures. Prices dropped. We've been steadily dropping.

We're now down to $165,000. If we'd started out at $175,000, we have no doubt the house would have sold. It's a bummer, to be sure, but we are so ready to move that we've just bitten the bullet and we're doing it.

The light at the end of the tunnel is this. We dropped the price to $165,000 just on Wednesday evening. Thursday, we got a call from a realitor wanting to show the place that evening. It was a last minute thing for me, not having gotten the call when it first came and ending up with a 25 minute window in which to make the house presentable and put away the groceries I'd been out buying when I finally noticed the message waiting.

The realitor called right after showing the house, wanting to set up another time to see it the next day (today). She said, "The wife is ready to go, but wants the husband to see it to make sure. He got called away at the last minute today."

So, this evening, while we're off taking Davan to her dress rehearsal for 100 Echos, the couple will be looking at our house. We're trying to not get too worked up - who knows if the husband will like it? Who knows if they'll make a reasonable (to us that means full price right now) offer? However, we are really hoping this will be it. Really hoping.

I'm Back (Again!)

We've once again got internet service at home. I've missed blogging and am planning on posting semi regularly again. I was hemming and hawing about what I should blog to start with, but decided that if I waited to make it a good one, it might not happen. So, it just is what it is.

When I was last regularly posting, it was about a year ago when Anthony was facing the set backs at work. While I posted for a while from the library, and then sporadically there after, it was all pretty hit or miss, so a brief update from the year is in order.

Anthony continued with his reduced hours into the fall, but we did fine with budgeting, didn't really suffer much in a financial way and enjoyed having him home for a three day weekend every week.

Because we were doing okay with money and the dog wanting continued, we adopted Ranger at the end of July.

Actually, as I see when I look the picture folder, July was a busy month, with a foreign exchange student for a few weeks:
(On the very hiking trip shown above, I lost our camera to the stream. It was very sad - it just rolled right down the bank and into the water. We lived without for many months, then bit the bullet and purchased another. This picture was off of our student's camera. )

Several day hiking trips - this one is to Castle Craig, which was very cool:


Two back packing trips - one was very laid back with doing 9 miles in three days up to a favorite spot - Elk Meadows:


While the other was much more hard core - 5 days and 48 miles in the Bull of the Woods area. Just to make it more challenging, Davan was sick for the first couple of days on this one:
And, last, but not least, Davan's first away camp. She was gone for a week. She loved the camp overall, but there were food issues (short version - they said they were fine with accommodating vegan, but it wasn't true):

And that was just July! Actually, most of the other months this year weren't quite so packed and some highlights I've already posted here.

We did do a fair amount of camping and hiking this summer, but that was fit around Davan's heavy camp schedule. She pretty much taught a camp or participated in a camp or sometimes both most weeks over the summer. She did several Do Jump camps, an AWOL camp, the above away camp, and then taught younger kids at Do Jump as well.

In the fall, she started up with Zig Zags again and, also, by jumping on the opportunity when a couple of kids pulled out of Tic Tocs (the younger performance troop at Do Jump) at the last minute, has been doing Tic Tocs this year as well. She's been quite busy between both troops, two adult classes at Do Jump, a class at AWOL (just in the fall), starting dance (jazz in the fall, with the addition of two classes of ballet a week this winter), a winter class at Night Flight, and teaching at Do Jump. Whew.

We've been able to pull all this off money-wise by both her and I doing work at Do Jump for work trade. She is teaching and I am doing office work. This has allowed us to pay very little out of pocket there.

Davan is into her performance season. She has a couple of dance competitions (one past, one yet to come), the Tic Toc show - 100 Echos - this weekend with last weekend being packed with extra rehearsal for said show, the Zig Zag show - Seeds of Hope - coming up for two weekends in May, plus, of course, extra rehearsals, and two dance recitals in June. One of the dance recitals will be similar to what she did in December, but the other is a whole show - Alice in Wonderland. She'll be dancing with her ballet class, but also got a part as the Jester, for which she gets to do a solo and a group dance. The solo is being crafted for her as a dance/cirque type piece and she's really excited about that. Extra rehearsals have started for that already, so we're fitting that in, too!

I've decided to do a triathlon again this summer, so I've been getting out on my bike and swimming regularly in addition to running with Ranger. When Ranger first came to live with us, I pretty much gave up bike riding in deference to taking her on walks and such, but I missed it and wanted the tri challenge again, so we're making it work.

And now, on with regular posts!