#2058 June wrap-up

I'd say that June was mostly pretty great; there was definitely more good and fun than bad and crappy. Let's recap:

• Mom and Lizzie came to visit!
• Sightseeing included Red Butte Garden, GilGal Garden and Antelope Island with a "bonus" trip to and from Provo for good measure
• French food and hamburgers!
• Live music!
• MT, Lizzie and I saw Ryan Adams in concert at Red Butte Garden 
• I saw Michael Franti at RBG (volunteer work after the show)
• MT and I spent a couple of days in San Francisco!
• We went to see the Giants play the Padres
• We spent a glorious afternoon at Angel Island and on Alcatraz
• We had a terrific meal at Brenda's French Soul Food (my mouth still waters thinking about it) 
• T is home and healthy and without wisdom teeth 
• Osi didn't have a great month
• She had seizures for two days early in the month
• She got a foxtail in her eye and had to wear the Cone of Shame
• Petsmart won't groom her because she can't remain standing for 90% of the time
• Major repairs to two of our cars
• Air conditioning in my car
• Brakes on T's car
• I volunteered at RBG 31.75 hours in June 
• I read five books
• I saw three movies
• I gained 1.4 lbs, (all San Francisco's fault!)
• I celebrated my birthday

July is shaping up to be fun, too. 

• With my new concert volunteer gig, live music is the theme of the summer. In July I will go to at least once concert every week!
• Two Bluebird Cafe shows at Sundance
• Jackson Brown at RBG
• an 80's show with Belinda Carlisle, ABC and Modern English at RBG (volunteer work)
• DRAKE at Vivint Arena
• July has TWO holidays (here in Utah, anyway!)

I hope you all had a great month and have fun plans for July. Summer rules!!

#2057 three things: books, music and the shrine

Here we go...

1. An abundance of choices. I like books. I like lists. I have a ginormous list of books that I would like to read. I have marked up the list to identify books that I currently own, both electronic and physical, and books that I can get electronically from the library. There are a whole bunch of books that don't fit into either category, but I'm always looking. The problem I have is that when it comes time to start a new book, I have a hard time choosing. Sometimes I will number the books and have MT or T pick a number in the range and that's how I read the book they "choose". Sometimes I will be in a specific mood for a certain type of book - earlier this week I found myself in dire need of a simple chick-lit story. I hadn't read one of those for awhile. When I got home from work I was looking at the ebooks I have and trying to pick one. I couldn't do it. So I took a nap. I'm really tired.

BECAUSE...

2. Volunteering. I got a new volunteer assignment at Red Butte Garden! I am officially a concert volunteer! You have to put in some time at the garden to become a concert volunteer. Usually you have to have three years of service before you can even be considered. This is my third year, but I reached out to the volunteer coordinator, Lauren, and asked if I could have some concert duty. I had to fill out an application and have an interview with Lauren, but I made the cut. Last night was my first show. My assignment was not sexy: I was on the clean-up crew which means that after the show I put on some rubber gloves and grabbed a big heavy-duty garbage sack and walked through the amphitheater picking up garbage that people left behind. I can tell you that the people who sit in the donor/sponsor pavilion don't much bother with throwing away their garbage and cleaning up after themselves.

The cool thing is that I got to see the whole concert and I only had to work for 20 to 30 minutes. There were four or five of us picking up trash, so it went pretty fast. Even though I only worked for, let's say, 18 minutes, I get credit for volunteer the whole time I was there, which was about three hours!  WIN! I'm tired, though, because I didn't get home until around 11:45.

Last night's show was Michael Franti. I know only one song of his ("Say Hey"), but one of the ladies I volunteer with told me that his shows are fun and he is a cool guy. She was right. The show was fun and he does seem cool. I loved that he went out into the crowd  to sing. He's all about peace and love and being kind. There was such a nice vibe to the crowd. Lots of little kids, people dancing,  waving their arms in the air and singing along. Joyful! Here are a couple of pics:

I'm at the back of the venue shortly after Michael Franti came on

Now I'm on the west side of the stage. You can see everyone is standing up and moving around

Michael is the "tall" guy with the red guitar strap on his shoulder. He's out in the crowd

I've been to several shows at Red Butte Garden and I haven't ever seen the whole crowd - even the folks in the donor pavilion - stand up for the whole show. Infectious music from a good performer.

(The third item is completely unrelated to the first two items. I just have to tell the story and share the photo.)

3. The Shrine. Last week as I was driving to work, I spotted a dead raccoon on the side of the road. I thought, "Oh wow. A dead raccoon." The next day, the raccoon had a silver, star-shaped Mylar balloon tied to one of his stiff little legs. I thought, "Oh wow. That's f'd up. I hope the person who tied that balloon on the leg was wearing gloves." On Monday, I noticed a little shrine on the side of the road. There was a small cross and some flowers. I thought, "Oh wow. It's sad that someone died there." This morning as I drove by the shrine, I noticed a photo on the cross. As I looked a little closer at the photo, I saw that it was a photo of a raccoon. I burst out laughing and pulled over because, well, I cracked me up and became blog fodder.

RIP little raccoon. And thank you, Salt Lake person(s), for bringing a little humor into my commute.

~~~~~~

PS...I still haven't picked out a book, but I have finished a few. Check out the 2018 Reading List page to see what I've been reading. :)

#2056 travel Tuesday: Sitges

On Monday nights, my mom, my sister and I have a conference call. We chat about whatever is happening in our lives, things we are looking forward to or things that are making us sad. The length of the call varies, as do the moods of the three women, so it's a nice check-in time.

Last night Mom was talking about Sitges, Spain, and it brought back memories of the day we spent there three years ago. I was looking through the photos and thought I would share a few.

Sitges seems like a nice little town. I haven't spent very much time there and I certainly haven't seen all there is of the town. Mom, Lizzie and I mostly stayed on the side of the town where the big old church is, so my photos are limited to that area. Still, it's nice.

One of my first images of Sitges, this enormous flowering vine flowing down the side of the building.

Sangria made with cava. Delicious!

What's not to like here?

Beautiful building

I mean...wow

The beach looks great!

Typical Spanish cobblestone street. Love it!

You know I have a thing for doors. Look at this cute blue door.

Another cobblestone street

Here's the church I mentioned. Great location

I think this is a town I would like to visit again!

#2055 San Francisco

MT and I had the opportunity to spend a little time in San Francisco on Thursday and Friday, so we took it! We had a great time. I'll share some pics and tell a bit about what we did.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and checked into our hotel, HTL587. The hotel is in an old building in the Tenderloin District. I didn't know too much about the area other than it is pretty central and there are quite a few homeless people in the area. All of that is true. Our sixth floor room was nice and we were comfortable there. We didn't do a lot of walking around the neighborhood except on Friday night when we went to dinner at a great restaurant about two minutes from the hotel called Brenda's. 

I'm just gonna tell you that it was one of the best meals we have ever had. We started with the spicy garlic shrimp gratin. Amazing! Spicy, creamy, crunchy, sweet - it was the total package. MT called it "a special dish". It was all we could do to stop ourselves from licking the bowl after the bread was gone. My entree was the shrimp and grits. The grits were creamy and cheesy. There was a hint of saltiness from the bacon which offset the sweetness of the shrimp. The tomato gravy had a kick to it that paired well with the Abita IPA I had to accompany it. Don't even get me started on the biscuit the server suggested I get to accompany my entree. I think it has spoiled me for all other biscuits, which is a shame, because I like biscuits.

MT had one of the that night's specials: a spinach-stuffed pork chop with sweet onion gravy, mashed potatoes and veggies. His plate was clean when he was done. I thought he was going to pick up that pork chop bone and chew on it. I had a bite of the meat and it was savory and tender and all kinds of delicious. 

Now that I've told you about the end of the trip, let's get back in order.

On Thursday night we got to go to the baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres. We sat down in the field level seats. They are divine.

Madison Bumgarner was pitching for the Giants. He's very good at his job. It was a pleasure to watch him work.

AT&T Park is spectacular. 

On Friday morning we headed over to Pier 33 to catch a boat to Alcatraz. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. From the pier there is a great view of Coit Tower.

The view of the San Francisco skyline from the bay is incredible. We were so lucky to have such a clear, beautiful day.

We even had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the boat.

It turned out that the tour we were on first went to Angel Island. I didn't know anything about the place, but there is quite a bit of history there. It was a military base during the Civil War and World War II and served as the Ellis Island of the Pacific, but it was also a detention center for Chinese immigrants. We took a tram tour around the island and learned about the history of the place and took in the breathtaking views of Tiburon, the Marin Headlands, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the San Francisco skyline. The island is covered in trees, including eucalyptus. It smelled clean and fresh there.

We had lunch at the little restaurant at the cove. It was awesome to sit out in the sunshine, look at the water and have some surprisingly good food. We even got to watch sea lions frolicking!

From there we headed over to The Rock.

Alcatraz has quite the reputation, you know. It was a military prison, then a maximum security prison from the 1930's to the early 1960's. It was in operation for 29 years. After the prison closed, a group of Native Americans occupied it for 19 months. It is a fascinating and eerie place. To me, to see the ruins of the buildings juxtaposed with the beautiful gardens and flowers that had been planted there by the guards and their families that are still kept up by volunteers is kind of crazy. I wish I had taken some photos that captured the way I felt, but I didn't.

We went on the tour of the cellhouse. There was an audio tour that was narrated by a former guard. The directions were very clear. I didn't want to turn off the audio to spend too much time at a particular photo panel or cell because it was all kind of intimidating and a little creepy. The tour included information about a couple of escape attempts, one of which was quite murderous and the other attempt which might have succeeded, but no one knows. 

It was seeing the regular cells and actually going into one of the solitary confinement cells that made me sad and scared. I bet the night tour is especially scary. It was freaky enough during the day.

Well, that's all I got. I am glad we went to Alcatraz, because I have always kind of wanted to check it out, but the unexpected treat was Angel Island. It was really beautiful there and I'm glad I had a chance to see it. 

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I'm pretty sure I'll get back to my regular posting schedule next week, so talk to you on Tuesday!

#2054 three things: family visit, foxtails and Ryan Adams

It's been a few days, but I'm back!

1. Family visit! One of the main reasons I haven't written for a week is because I was preparing for and then playing with my visitors. Mom and Lizzie came to spend a few days here in lovely SLC and really, since they are the main readers of this little corner of the internet, I could just tell them what I was thinking. They arrived on Saturday and left last night (Wednesday). We did a bit of sightseeing, ate some good food, chatted, and even saw a concert. I had fun hanging out with them and I hope they had fun here too. I think they did.

2. Foxtails are the enemy. On Saturday afternoon, just as I was about to go pick Mom and Lizzie up at the airport, I noticed that Osi's left eye did not look right. It was kind of puffy and nearly closed. She was sort of blinking in a painful-looking way. I noticed she had some little burrs on her back and I was afraid that she had a burr in her eye. I couldn't see anything in the eye and I had to leave, so I couldn't do much about it then. When we got home, I called a vet but they weren't taking in any more pets that day. I decided to wait to see if Osi could blink out whatever was in there. At 5:30 on Sunday morning I got up to look at her and it was worse, so I took her to the emergency vet (which is where I would have gone on Saturday anyway). There was a foxtail in her eye. EWWW!! OUCH!!! The stupid weed was working it's way out of Osi's eye, and the vet was able to remove it without even sedating the dog. The foxtail had scratched Osi's eye, so she had to wear the Cone of Shame. She was not graceful with it. She ran in to things during the three days she wore it. There was also an almost unbearable stink that came from the cone. Osi is a sloppy drinker. When she gets a drink of water, she frequently sloshes and slurps and dribbles water onto her floppy lips and ears and all over the floor. With the cone, the water never made it to the floor. It stayed on her chin and neck and ears. The Cone of Shame became the Cone of Stink. When I took Osi to her regular vet on Wednesday morning, even he flinched at the stench.

The good news is that Osi is now cone free. Her eye looks a lot better and everything seems to be fine.

3. Ryan Adams. On Tuesday night Lizzie, MT and I went to see Ryan Adams in concert at Red Butte Garden. Such a great venue! It was a nice evening, not too hot and the wind didn't come down out of the canyon like it sometimes does. We had an excellent picnic and enjoyed the fabulous music. Plus my friends Nicole and Austin sat by us, so it was even better! This is the third year in a row I've been able to see Ryan Adams in concert. I like his music a lot. In the words of the t-shirt Lizzie got, Ryan Adams is sad and loud. Awesome!

Here's hoping y'all have a great weekend planned. I'm aiming to write a few words on Saturday, but I've got some volunteer hours to put in at RBG that day and night. Be kind to yourselves!

#2053 WW Wednesday (on Thursday): 10 years

6/7/08. It's a catchy date, and one I will always remember because it is the day I joined Weight Watchers. What I remember is that I had been thinking about joining for a month or so, looking at the website and figuring out where the meeting place closest to my house was. It was a Saturday morning just a couple of days after my 42nd birthday and I left early while everyone was still asleep here at home and I drove myself over, paid the fee, got all the booklets and stuff, sat through that first meeting and told myself I was going to lose 100 pounds.

Today is 6/7/18, 10 years since that first meeting. I can't even tell you how many meetings I have attended. I've been through probably half a dozen leaders and a fortunate move by the WW center to a location much closer to my house. I haven't lost 100 lbs, but I did lose 75 lbs and thought I could handle the rest on my own. I couldn't. I gained a bunch of it back, but I had the sense to get back to the program before all of that weight came back on board.

I have been all in, sort of in, and not at all in the game at various times over the years. Now, 10 years later, I am down close to 60 lbs. I still want to lose that 100 lbs. Every ounce that comes off makes me happy. Every week when I weigh in and see a smaller number than the week before, I feel great. When I have a gain, I feel sad, but I don't feel as devastated as I have in the past. I know that I can get back on track. I have learned to be a bit more patient and kind to myself because putting on all that weight took time and taking it off will take even more time. I'm okay that it's coming off slowly because I really want it to be gone forever.

Here are a few photos:

I'm at my heaviest weight in these first two photos.

April 2008

 I look happy in the April photo but that was probably because I'd just had a good meal and a cold beer or two with my family in San Diego.

June 2008

T took this photo of me in Yellowstone Park.

Here I am at my lowest weight:

February 2010

MT took this photo while we were on vacation in Barbados (on the way to Palm Island).

It was probably in 2011 or 2012 that I decided to quit WW. I steadily started gaining weight and realized I needed to get back to the program in probably January 2014.

January 2014

Nothing like a bathroom selfie! I think the look on my face pretty much says it all.

I couldn't find many full-body photos of myself except for this one from April this year:

April 2018

I just celebrated my birthday and took this silly selfie:

June 2018

It's been a journey. It's a lifestyle. I still eat cheeseburgers and sugar cookies, the only difference is that now I try to balance my meals so that I don't feel over-full. I mean, it still happens; I'm human and old habits die hard. Overall I am proud of myself. I am happy to say that I am healthier, stronger and more fit at 52 than I was at 42. There is still effort to be made and pounds to be removed. It's gonna happen.

#2052 migraines for me and seizures for the dog

Over the past couple of weeks I have had blinding, dizzying headaches that make me want to curl up in a ball, turn off all the lights and cry myself to sleep.

It's probably stress and lack of sleep.

Last night Osi was seizing throughout the night. She is fine for two or three months, then she has a cluster of seizures that usually spans about 24 hours. It's hard to sleep when she is having a seizure. Even though there isn't anything I can do to help her, I like to pet her and talk to her. I'm sure it's scary for her when it happens. After the seizure itself is over, coming back to reality is slow and stumbling and disorienting. Last night was nice and cool at 2AM and I let her go outside to lay on the deck. I set my alarm for 45 minutes so I could go back and check on her. She was fine then, so I left her out there and set the alarm again, but couldn't get myself out of bed when the alarm went off, so she stayed out there until 6AM. She must have felt better because she was running through the sprinklers when I went to check on her. She came up to the door with a smiley dog face and a wagging tail. I dried her off and gave her some food and she promptly had another seizure.

She seems to be feeling better tonight and I have this shitty headache.

I'm going to bed.

#2051 May wrap-up

Here's what I know: every month has its good and bad days. Every month has days when I think, "What did I do today?" and every month has days when I think, "Man, I am glad this day is over." Fortunately, May had more good or even mediocre days than days I would rather forget.

Here's a mini-recap:

• I went to the gym for classes 16 times. That comes out to $2.22/class, so I feel like I definitely got my money's worth this month. 
• I watched four movies: three at the theater and one at home on DVD. I hadn't seen any of them before. 
• I read three books this month. It's fewer than I have been reading, but I have been doing more stuff.
• I was able to get out and hit golf balls a couple of times this month on the range. It felt good.
• I went out on my bike once in May. I would have gone on at least one more ride, but the weather wasn't cooperating. 
• I went up to Red Butte Garden 8 times in May. 
• My least favorite day was probably the 18th because I pretty much could't do anything right that day.
• My favorite day was probably the 27th because I did something that made me feel happy and useful. 
• MT celebrated his birthday.
• T didn't have a great month. 
• Osi's ear infection finally got cleared up.

Looking forward to fun stuff in June:

• My birthday!
• Mom & Lizzie are coming to visit!
• We are going to see Ryan Adams in concert!
• Quick get-away to San Francisco for me and MT!

I'm sure there will be other fun things too, but those are four I know for sure. 

Have a safe, serene Sunday. I'll chat at you again on Monday!