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Suburban Surprise

26 Sunday May 2013

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DeerI’ve been feeling a little out of shape recently.  I haven’t been getting a lot of exercise, and yet I’m feeling like I’m in a spot where I really NEED it.  My work is fantastic – I love the team and what we’re working on together.  It’s just mentally exhausting.  I come home happy and fried.  Tapped out.  I remember part of the workshop I took last fall where we learned what our unique needs are.  What are our main ‘tanks’ and how do we keep them filled?  When they’re filled we’re at our optimum…at our best!  When they’re depleted, it’s a mess.

Apparently I need 7 hours of exercise a week to be at my best.  SEVEN!  That’s one freakin’ hour a day!  And I can assure you I’m nowhere near doing that right now.  I’m taking a sabbatical from hockey – man, when I first started playing I skated 4 nights a week!  And prior to taking up hockey I walked about 5 miles a day (with hills) every day for about 6 months…every day without fail.  That was the summer of 2003 when the weather was super hot and sunny.  I remember losing about 30-35 lbs in the process and getting in the best shape of my life cardio-wise as well.  OK wait…an hour and a half of walking every day and I morphed gradually into a svelte size 6.  Hmmm…and I needed ‘just’ an hour a day but didn’t know it at the time?  I do remember how energized I felt and how happy I was with my new figure…and so happy in general.  Maybe I really DO need an hour of exercise a day!

Well, they say there’s no better time to start (or restart) than NOW.  This is a lazy Memorial Day Weekend…no plans except for a super fun lunch and shopping date with my Mom yesterday (a belated birthday celebration).  I’m still grinning about the daytrip J and I took to Mount St. Helens last Sunday…on my birthday!  What an incredible trip it was.  The only thing that was a wee bit of a bummer was that there was too much snow on the trails to hike.  We were looking forward to getting some exercise outdoors after a 3 hour car ride but that will happen next time!  Still, an amazing experience.

So today I put on my walking gear and grabbed my iPod…time to explore my neighborhood once again on foot!  I live at the bottom of a very steep hill and yes, that was a part of my daily walking routine 10 years ago.  That hill is a butt (and lung) kicker…today I opted for a flatter route.  The drizzle was starting to morph into rain and I wondered if it would continue to get worse or clear up.  Thankfully it cleared up…I got so warm I had to ditch my windbreaker.

Here in the Seattle suburbs, so much open, vacant land has been gobbled up by subdivisions.  Call it thriving progress or call it sad…it’s our reality.  Frankly, I love the growth here in the region.  I’ve lived here all my life and am passionate about the Northwest…and proud that so many major businesses call this region home headquarters too.

I headed north up the main road near my townhouse and into the next town’s city limits.  Walking alongside a 4-lane road isn’t the most relaxing thing to do, but wide sidewalks and little traffic (not much on a Sunday holiday weekend) make it decent.  Once you get onto side streets there are a ton of windy roads and cul-de-sacs to get wonderfully lost in.  As I was deciding which side street to explore, I suddenly spotted a couple off to my right walking their dog.  They were on a gravelly trail just off the main road!  Dang, how many times have I walked right past that trail and never saw it?  Probably hundreds.  Certainly it wouldn’t be visible whizzing by in your car.  I smiled and walked up to them…where does the trail go, I asked?  They said oh, it “just goes back a ways.”  Ok, that’s a funny, vague answer!  They didn’t even know if it was public or private.  OK, so if I’m trespassing I’ll just laugh and say hey, what’s for dinner?

I looked down the trail…lots of trees were surrounding it and there were benches every so often. Looked public to me, but I didn’t see any signs posted.  So, I started down the trail, feeling a little giddy.  Here was a trail right in my neighborhood I was exploring for the first time!  After about a quarter of a mile the trail ran between houses in a suburban development and dumped me out into a cul-de-sac.  OK, that was somewhat interesting!  But I remembered further back there was a fork in the trail.  I retraced my steps back and took it.  There was one last bench and I was surrounded by thick trees again.

Then, I turned a corner…and look at the welcoming committee in the picture!  Do you know that feeling when you’re alone but you suddenly feel like you’re not alone?  That’s a jolt I felt right before looking to my left and spotting the two deer!  Wow, I was surprised!  Surprised not only that there is undeveloped land in this part of our suburbs, but that deer are here too!  We really don’t see much wildlife around here…maybe a raccoon or coyote late at night, but certainly not deer!  I wonder if that land is even develop-able (is that a word)?  Is it too marshy?  Who knows.

I’m going to go back tomorrow and see if they are still there!

Beautiful Backyard

04 Sunday Mar 2012

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Yesterday reminded me once again how important it is to unplug and get away.  Away from technology, phones, email, texts…work.  I’ve been feeling the burn and burden lately, feeling like when I get home I have a second job to do.  Firing up the 6 year old laptop here in the home office that’s showing its age and taking care of more.  And more.  And I boiled over last week…see my The Ugly Crescendo post for the, well, ugly details on that.

But I’m doing a lot better now.  I know myself well and know that I always come back to center if I get knocked off balance.  Sometimes it just takes longer than I’d like.  Psst:  guys, take note:  women get “full” and overwhelmed sometimes.  We’re the supreme goddesses of multi-tasking, but sometimes we go into Tilt mode and need to empty the mental trash can so to speak.  We get full and just can’t give anything more until we empty ourselves out.  “Temporarily out of order,” as a good friend of mine likes to quip.  Sometimes the fix means a great girls’ night out, a little retail therapy or maybe a good cry.  Believe me, any combo of those works well in my book. Last weekend required playing two games of hockey in one day to really polish off the stress.

I’d love to take a vacation to truly get off the grid for awhile, but that’s just not in the cards for me right now.  So meanwhile I’ve been mentally – joyfully – riding the coat tails of my dear friend P’s latest (second!) trip to Belize, savoring her photography and stories along the way.  Feast your eyes on her travel website and get inspired to plan your own adventure! 

Tuesday night was a girls’ night mani/pedi at Medina Nails in Bellevue.  My former co-worker L and I sometimes just look at eachother and laugh at how we’ve become friends after a rocky start on a job in a cramped, tiny office a couple of years ago.  GEEZ was that nearly two years ago?  Yep.  Getting a mini massage on the ol’ tired arms and legs and some badly-overdue clean up and prettying of the nails was pure bliss.

Yesterday – Saturday – meant a little more work. Our annual HOA meeting – a requirement in the first quarter of every calendar year – and later finishing up my taxes.  I was very pleasantly surprised at the size of my refund.  2011 was my first year with additional income from self employment…my Silpada jewelry business commissions plus some additional 1099-type income working on a project for my friend A’s consulting business.  I figured those (yet untaxed) dollar amounts would trump a lot of the refund amount, but the final numbers tell a pretty happy story. 

THEN it was time to unplug.  Nope, no out of town vacations coming up for me, but it sure felt like a vacation getting outside for a long walk with my new friend D and her adorable dog too!  We each live in Kirkland, but in different parts of town.  We decided to meet at a park she had never explored, and one I had not walked through literally in years!  Juanita Bay Park in Kirkland! 

This park is such a treasure…and why I call it a Beautiful Backyard.  For it’s just a 5 minute drive from my house and like escaping into another world.  The preserved wetlands and walking trails are absolutely fascinating.  I read somewhere the park used to be a golf course back in the 1930s…it seems a little hilly for a golf course but then again I don’t golf.  I love the wooden boardwalks over the wetlands.  Turtles, muskrats, beavers, blue herons…and if you’re lucky when you look up you can see bald eagles soaring over the lake or perched proudly in the trees.  D and I were lucky yesterday and saw two.  The sun was warm on our backs while the wind off the lake was a little chilly.  I remember when I used to live about a mile down the street from this park and would visit it often, back in the late 1990s.  How fun to relish the park 12 years later with a new friend!

We admired the beautiful lake views, the blue sky and spotted a few kite surfers practicing over at an adjacent park a short walk away.  So we had to go check that out!  This looks totally amazing and I might need to try it someday.  In much warmer water or with a great wetsuit.  Brrrr.

The trees were a mix of bare branches and a few brave ones already in full, pink bloom.  D gasped as she looked up – what was she looking at?  There sat a beautiful humming bird in a tree.  How rare to see them sitting still!

I felt completely refreshed after that walk.  Being outside and getting some exercise with great company cures just about everything.  I’m inspired to do more walking to get back in better shape this year – the “stress pounds” from a few years ago are getting old. 

And D has recommended another great book about finding our strengths.  I can’t wait to dig in.

Cabin Fever Week

22 Sunday Jan 2012

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How quickly things changed in 24 hours.  I came home from work last Friday (the 13th, which was a good day save for saying good bye to a co-worker who is relocating overseas), relaxed at home and slept in gloriously late into Saturday.  Know that feeling when you wake up and it just ‘feels’ different?  In my bleary just-out-of-bed attempt to wake up I couldn’t quite figure out what it was…other than it was super quiet outside.  No dull drone of street noise.

Aha!  It SNOWED!  Where did I miss this on the TV weather forecasts?  I suppose I should not have been too shocked – it is January, after all. I don’t even know where to start with this one.  Other than Snow + Seattle area is a very bad combination.  For getting around, that is.  Otherwise, it’s gorgeous.  Exhibit A – the view off my back deck. 

We got around 6 inches or so in my area – by the time it was done the faint line markings from the deck in that picture were completely covered over.  After hearing news reports and reading countless local-area Facebook posts we had anywhere from around 3 inches to over a foot depending on where you were.

The power stayed on here and my furnace is working.  Everything else after that truly is all gravy.  Check out my Cold Where It’s Supposed to be Cold post from (*gulp* wow time flies) November 2010.  Two furnace repairs and a crapped out fridge just a couple months prior to that made it an expensive end of that year…after just starting to get some decent income again following a long unemployed streak.  So anyway, here we are in 2012 and I relished my warm townhouse, hot showers and the beautiful snow falling outside.

After a couple of days it got old.  Driving in the snow in the Seattle area is a hot topic for sure.  In general, it’s not a good idea.  Seriously…a few inches of snow will literally bring us to our knees.  We’re hilly.  We don’t have a ton of snow removal equipment.  We’re not like other parts of the country who deal with this routinely and life goes on.  Around here, it just doesn’t.  Hell, when a UPS truck gets stuck in your driveway, you know it’s bad.

What is it about snow?  It brings a huge Hush Hug over everything in its embrace.  I stay in my jammies all day and take naps.  At noon. 

But soon it was time to get back to work.  Thankfully this team is all about playing it safe and not trying to be heroes getting into the office.  We can all work remotely, although in the type of work we do it’s not ideal for long periods of time as I learned.

There was one small problem.  The power cord for my work laptop was still in my office!  I never bring it home because I never work from home.  It still reminds me too much of when I was unemployed, and frankly I’d rather get out of the house and be around people during the day.  In my last work assignment my work laptop was the same brand as my home one, so it was easy to just swap out the power cords between the two if I ever did work from home on rare occasion.  Not this time, however.

On Monday I was able to squeak by with doing email either from my phone or through my home laptop.  But I didn’t have full access to the internal resources I depend on to get work done.  And I attempted a few times to get the work laptop connected with my home cable modem, but the modem is new and I was unfamiliar with the steps to switch connectivity (I don’t use a router).  And I watched the battery power indicator slowly sink southward as I chatted with our corporate Helpdesk and all to troubleshoot.  No luck. 

So I knew Tuesday I needed to get into work somehow to get that power cord.  They were predicting heavy snow Tuesday into Wednesday.  Turns out the main roads were pretty clear.  It’s the side streets, sidewalks and driveways that are the problem. 

I got into work just fine and was pleasantly surprised to see my officemate there already.  Ahhh, human interaction!  We had both planned to stay for a few hours, but then got a phone call from her husband around lunch time that it was really starting to snow hard and we better get home. I’m so glad he called, because our office does not have a window and it was snowing much harder up near where my officemate and I live compared to work.

When you’re stuck at home snowbound, the cabin fever grips tight.  The novelty wears off quickly.  So to fight it off, I vowed to get out of the house at least once a day for a walk.  And it really helps – and is pretty good exercise too stomping through heavy, wet snow.

Thankfully by Friday the snow turned to rain and everything turned into a big slushfest.  Relief was coming!  Freedom! 

And what a great way to blast back into the routine of life with a wonderful Saturday.  My friend L ventured out this way to the suburbs (I joke that he’s mentally allergic to them but that’s another story).  With iPad in hand, he and I walked through the townhouse here and talked about tons of ideas to update my place.  I know my place needs work, and I know I need to keep an open mind.  We jumped around all over the place with ideas and chitchat.  And we agreed on a general plan to start work upstairs here where the bedrooms are and then slowly work our way downstairs.  

Oh boy.  That means my 3rd bedroom – the Room of Crap – is in the hotseat first.  And that’s actually a great idea as it is very underutilized space save for a large bookcase and random stuff on the floor that needs to get boxed up into storage or thrown out.  And I get to think about paint colors too, for it’s still Insane Asylum White like the rest of this place was when I first bought it.  Oh, the possibilities!  L wants to convert it to my home office and have the home office where I am now become a guest bedroom, as this room is larger and can hold a queen-sized bed. Interesting idea!

Later I headed out (Out! After not driving for 5 days!) to meet friends for our annual Chinese New Year dinner at China Clipper in Woodinville.  They have wonderful, pretty close to authentic Northern Chinese cuisine.  We had a blast at dinner and then headed over to J’s house for board games and laughter.  Know when you laugh so hard that tears stream down your face? 

Fantastic.

Cotton Ball 5K

28 Sunday Aug 2011

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Whew!  The 3rd time IS a charm.  After being too tired or too rained out for two other 5Ks this spring/summer, I finally got one under my belt this year!

OK, yeah…I didn’t RUN it, but it still counts right?

This was my second time volunteering in the annual Alki Beach 5K Walk & Run, which benefits Northwest Hope and Healing.  Northwest Hope and Healing is a non-profit organization which provides emergency financial assistance for women who are undergoing breast cancer treatment at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.  Assistance with basic living expenses like rent, childcare and groceries.

And wow that was a lot of hyperlinking in that last paragraph.  But really good stuff – please check it out.

So, how do you volunteer at a 5K?  Well, the way I did today was one of the easiest jobs ever – walk the course at the very end, to help let the police and others know that they could start re-opening the roads again.  That’s it! 

There are a ton of both new and old memories woven into this event…starting with the neighborhood.  Alki Beach is in West Seattle, and there’s a ton of family history here on my Dad’s side of the family.  My grandfather grew up in West Seattle in the 1920s.  He and my grandmother later raised my Dad and Uncle in this same neighborhood.  I have enormously fond memories as a kid of the long drive from my house growing up in the suburbs over to West Seattle for Sunday dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Countless, joyful times. 

And the newer memories are from my dear friend P, who inspired me to start training to run 5Ks a couple of years ago.  She and I used to work together and I’m so glad we still keep in touch despite super busy schedules.  P’s both run and volunteered in this 5K before, and I was so happy she asked me to join her again this year.

What can I say…this just FEELS good all around.  And it’s a nice change of pace getting out of the suburbs and into a wonderful, older neighborhood in the city, right on the salt water of Puget Sound.

OK, getting up super early on a Sunday morning is not my favorite thing to do, but once I got up, got dressed and on my way to meet P for our carpool, I was smiling.  P showed up with S, an exchange student from Japan who is staying with a friend of P’s while attending college here.  S was a good sport – I wasn’t sure if she knew entirely what this event was going to be all about but I admired her spunk and enthusiasm.  And her English was pretty good too!  Far better than my Japanese for sure, ha.

We arrived at Alki Beach around 8am.  Damn, that fog was thick but thankfully it was not as chilly as it was last year.  I remember borrowing knit running gloves from P at the last minute!  And also having to put our t-shirts on over our jackets! This year it was not cold, but that fog didn’t burn of AT ALL.

Yep, that’s Yours Truly in this week’s picture – that’s a fivenineteen first, everyone.  Had it not been so foggy there would have been a spectacular view of the Seattle skyline behind me.  Believe me.  P and I were so bummed because we really wanted S (the exchange student) to experience the view.  But the darn fog never burned off.

The one challenging thing about walking at the tail end of a 5K is, well, keeping your pace just right.  You don’t want to ‘hover’ too close behind the last group of walkers.  And, you want to make sure you start walking truly after everyone else has started.  With about 1200 people participating we had to wait several minutes before we could take to the street and start.

This race goes up and down Alki Avenue – a very flat, fast course.  At the halfway point the course does a 180 turn and heads back down the street, finishing at the same place we started.  Even though I was walking at a very slow pace with P and S, I was looking forward to a quick gulp of water at the water stop.  NOPE.  No water stop at the turn around point this year!  If I had been running this race I would have been extremely pissed.  Yikes.

Other than a few late stragglers we had to corral (how in the hell do you show up over one hour late for a 5K? Baffling.) the three of us had a very nice, relaxing stroll.  And we even finished in around 1 hour 15 minutes.  MUCH faster than last year.  Feels kinda cool walking over the finishing line and hearing the emcee announce, “…and our last walkers have just crossed the finish line…”.  Meanwhile we didn’t even break a sweat.

So although the fog kept its iron-clad grip on the neighborhood (hence my ‘cotton ball’ post title today), we had a wonderful morning volunteering.

And on the drive back to the suburbs?  Glorious sunshine.  Even Mount Baker was out.  Too funny how socked in Alki was.

Now it’s time for a nap.  Until next week, everyone!