I don’t even know how to start this post, or if I will even publish it. Right now, I am hurting. My soul feels like it is crushed and I don’t know what else to do but write and cry. This post will be raw, and may contain things you don’t want to read. This isn’t for you, this is for me, and for me to heal.

I’m sitting here yelling answers at Jeopardy after a good long nap. After dealing with social workers, hospitals and therapists; I’m taking a day off to do nothing and to be silly.  It feels good.

Why you ask am I yelling at the TV? Because in my house…Jeopardy is a ridiculous show where the wrong answer is often the better answer.  This also works for saying the same answer over and over. For instance: the topic was Local Newspapers…I knew one of them was bound to be “The Herald”…So I kept saying it. While my loss was 800, my right answer was worth 1600.  We also do actually play the show, and when we stop being silly, do pretty well.  So…What started this blog?  A Jeopardy based conversation with Nick. I say I am lucky, as not many people would engage in this silliness. 🙂

Nick: Would you ever go to see Jeopardy?
Me: I don’t know…
Nick: Apparently there’s free tickets. Would you go?
Me: Hmmm…Would it be raining?
Nick: Partly cloudy
Me: Can you ridicule the people who don’t answer right? Or yell your own answers?
Nick: You probably could, but you’d be thrown out.
Me: Totally worth it.
Nick:…
Me: (Interrupting) Would we be waiting for Conan?
Nick: Sure
Me: Then yes…if it was raining and there was nothing better to do and I could yell at the contestants on my way to go see Conan; then yes. I would go.

And there you have it. I have a neat guy, who doesn’t think its odd to yell random answers (which by the way was WAY more hilarious when I was drinking), and provides me with imaginary scenarios in which to attend shows that I like.

I’m also lucky for so many other reasons. This has not been a good week family-wise. Nick went down to Tacoma before I got off work to help clear my Dad’s apartment out. He made my a lovely dinner when I got home from Tacoma the next night around 11 pm, after starting work at 7 am. He picked up my new chicks for me while I was at work, so I would have a cute chirpy surprise when I got home.

It’s the big things, the little things, and the silly things which make me pretty darn lucky. Here’s to finding your  own competitive Jeopardy yelling cohort 🙂

Raina

Today, I want to hide in bed.

After that I want to venture out into the kitchen and bake warm, delicious treats and then sit in the garden and eat them.

Instead, I am working and coordinating calls out to family, hospitals and social workers while on breaks. During my vacation, my father went back in to the hospital. I’m glad my family waited to tell me until I was home and settled, so I could finally have time to myself. Now, I am waiting to see when he gets out and some next steps about his care, and where he will live. I am happy that he was proactive and checked himself in, but frustrated that this keeps happening, and that the VA can’t do more, and that he can’t take better care of himself.

These days, I am surprised that I have as much energy as I do. I feel pretty good overall, but this is mentally and physically draining. When I think about if I am ready to have my own family, the answer is pretty clear. I have been taking care of my parents longer than most kids live with their parents. I’m sure anything else will be a breeze.  Of course, focus on that has to wait a bit longer for this to get settled out.

Hence the desire to hide, and cook. I have visions of warm banana breads; rich creamy, citrusy custards with burnt sugar toppings; deep rich chocolate cakes, topped with boozy cherry jam that I have sitting in my pantry which was canned last summer.

Maybe after I head to Tacoma to sort out my father’s situation and help him clean his home, I can gather my lap top and some of my favorite cook books and just lay in bed, thinking of what to cook next!

In happy-ish news…the new chicks arrived today, sadly, the majority of them didn’t make it in travel. I have two new girls that will be joining the flock shortly!  I’ll post pictures of their sweet new faces when I bring them home later today from a neighbor who is watching them.

Here’s to the week wrapping up quickly!

Raina

I’m sitting here in Yellowstone National Park, taking a break from hiking and playing and chasing critters to have bacon and pancakes in the condo. More on that later. I keep meaning to give updates of what I have been up to, so I’ll use this fabulous free day to do that!

We have been building up the garden, including adding a new bed for lettuce, fennel, chives, and dill. We moved the coop to open up the back yard as well. The gardens look great, and we were able to set up multiple hammocks.

The start to some pac choi and lettuce. I started it in a small planter, then transplanted it  into a larger 4X4 foot bed.

This is one of the bigger beds.  Before I left for vacation, the lettuce, radishes and onions were  growing out of control!  I also added 4 more tomato plants and more peppers. There’s been dozens of other plants as well!

Even Charlie got in on the sun shine!  She doesn’t get to come out very often, but she  had a great time watching the chickens and stalking butterflies. How could I say no to that?

I took a quick hammock break to sit and relax in the sun. It was warm and sunny, and I couldn’t resist a break!

I had to take a quick pic of my feet in the sun, too! 🙂

The flowers in my front bed were blooming as well!

We had planned to go to Rainier, but Mia ate an entire chocolate cake, so we stayed home to watch her to make sure she was ok. After a lot of grass eating, moaning and whining, she was fine. To make sure I was still able to get some camping in, Nick put up the tent in the back yard, and set up the fire pit. It was a great way to end the day, and even Mia had a good time. Did she learn her lesson with chocolate? Probably not!

Nick and I celebrated what we refer to as our Bacon-i-versary, the celebration of the day we met and when Nick made me a bacon-wrapped hot dog. It was a turning point in rough year for me, and I wanted to make sure it was a special time. We planned a few trips, and I cooked a huge dinner for the two of us. I made Cab braised beef over spicy blue cheese polenta, with fiddle head ferns cooked in white wine and garlic and shallot. With that was a miners lettuce and wood sorrel salad with roasted peaches topped with blue cheese and drizled with with a balsamic reduction. I paired each with a cocktail to remind us of the adventures we had-Champagne with elder flower liqueur, a white wine from one of our first dates, and a Cab from when we went to Cave B Winery and Inn. It was an amazing night, and so very delicious!  Here’s some pics:

A few weeks ago, we made our way to Mt Rainier to do some exploring and hiking. We had decided we’d look for chanterelles and fiddle head ferns. Sadly, it was still too cold. We instead ate elk and venison burgers from a train in Elbe. We did a nice hike to some waterfalls, and I brought my film camera with me. It was a great time, and it was nice to get out and play, too.  We saw a few critters, my favorite was a little fox who was quite interested in what everyone was doing. I’ll have to post pics of him soon, too.

For the past few months I have been working on what I am referring to as the ultimate craft project. I’m not quite ready to release details on it quite yet, but details to come in a few weeks, promise!

That brings me to now! I have been on vacation since Friday, and this has been lovely!  We started our trip out to Yellowstone by driving first to Wallace Idaho. We walked around, hit a brewery where Nick tried all of the beers, and we played many games of pool. It was a fun time, and I highly recommend staying in Wallace if you want to check out some antique shops, have some good food, hit museums and if you want some amazing beers.

We slowly made our way to Yellowstone, hitting 50,000 Silver coins, an odd place right after the Montana/Idaho border, where I spend 5 bucks to play a slot machine and to people watch. We also passed through Missoula, where I picked up some black and white camera film and Nick bought this awesome old school Graflex camera-fully functional!  Isn’t it awesome?!

The past few days have been spent meandering through the park, hiking, taking pictures and just adventuring in general. It’s been an amazing time, and I am happy to be on the road. Yesterday I woke up to a pack of wolves howling outside.  I am also on the look out for a new film camera, as mine finally died after almost 15 years. The rest of the trip will be spent hiking, playing, caving and doing more photography. After all, I did bring 3 cameras and 6 lenses. I’ll post pics when I am back home and have better internet connection, and all my pics uploaded and the film developed. In the meantime, here’s one more pic to hold you over!

Here’s to a relaxing day, whether you’re on the road or just doing the day to day things 🙂

All my best-Raina
“I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.”  Caskie Stinnett

In an earlier post – Got Your Goat – I ended saying that I didn’t know of an appropriate goat quote. I just walked into my living room to a Julia Roberts movie where she said, “Happiness isn’t Happiness without a violin-playing goat”. So there you go. You can thank Julia Roberts for that. Who said Notting Hill was a complete waste? 😉

Cheers,
R

Or possibly better titled, Get your fingers out of your mouth and stop touching my damn food! Or, possibly, Raina actually is a freak when it comes to germs, and may be judging you while you eat!

It’s no secret to those that know me that I have an aversion to germs, especially that coming from people’s mouths (blah)! I have considered lysol-ing the incessant cougher on the bus who was clearly too ill to be in public. Let me take you back a few months to what was probably a prime example of how I can’t do germs, or floor crunchies. I’ll follow that up with a delightful tale of a full bore bat shit break down. If you’re squeamish, you may just want to skip this one.

During a recent training at work, we were asked to learn and apply mindfulness as a method for reducing stress in our Veteran population. We spent a lot of time doing deep breathing and other similar activities (I know, I know-hard job, right?). Part of this process was something called Mindful Eating, where you eat a raisin, and focus on mindfully looking at it, smelling it, and ultimately eating it. I get it…slowing down and savoring your food? We could all use some of that..

So began the experiment. Step one: Pass around a container of raisins, and everyone grab one.

With their fingers. Out of the same container of unwrapped, sticky, raisins.

D’oh.

Now…I am about half way through this line of people waiting patiently for their germ riddled treat. “I can totally do this, these are my coworkers…it’s ok”, I think, as I grab my (still germ riddled,  but I am damn ok with it) raisin.

And the exercise begins.  We hold it up and look at it (I’m ok at this point), we turn it over in our fingers (got it, I’m still cool), and even smell it. We’re being deliberate with our food, and I am totally behind this. Then the leader says “Now, place the raisin in your mouth.”.

Insert screeching tires of a big-ass Mack truck coming to a halt.

Huh? There’s god knows what on this sticky thing. Eek! Up until this point, my eyes and the eyes of all of my coworkers have been closed, but upon hearing the news that I had to throw what is now (I’m pretty sure) a mechanism of germ warfare into my mouth, I was up, alert, and my mindfulness spell was broken.

Not wanting to appear ass-ish, I continued to look at it. Mindfulness is Mindfulness, right? Now, I am pretty into my raisin, and am looking at it when I hear a soft whisper next to me: “Crap”.  Apparently my coworker dropped his raisin. This is seriously not conducive to mindfulness, so I help. We eventually find it under the desk and he goes back to his mindfulness activity, and pops the raisin in his mouth.

Whole. Lee. Shit.

He shrugs and chomps along merrily, while I stare in both shock and impressed awe. “You ate floor crunchies!!”, I whisper. No matter, he is clearly more Zen than I.  I eventually rub the raisin on my pants, take a nibble, and throw the rest in my tissue, hoping to high hell no one I work with is ill.  Needless to say, this activity-not my favorite.

So, by now  you have a good sense of how my brain works based on the past blogs (you may want to read the one about home improvement, if you have other questions. You can find that here). And yes, I do realize that this is plain silly and that one raisin probably won’t kill me (at least we better hope!!)  Flash forward to this past Sunday. Let me set the scene.

A Moroccan restaurant in Belltown, a 50th birthday party for someone I don’t know and 20+ of her friends, mostly softer science social workers (think crystal healing, Reiki, Qigong therapies), clinical social workers, dog park friends-a good smattering of the people I spend time with in real life. Just…well, strangers.

Let me also take time to note a few things:

• I drove in downtown after not eating for way too many hours
• I wasn’t planning on drinking
• You eat with your hands at this place. With Strangers. And their hands.

Blame it on last night’s trip to Baron, or that its a lazy, sunny Saturday and I have the house to myself, but I am feeling plain lazy. It feels good. I spent my morning reading blogs. There’s a lot of awesome ones-check out the side bar, bottom right, for a selection of great blogs I like to follow. Recently, someone asked what I do with my time…I seem to get stuff done, and by all outward appearances, have the whole adult-thing on lock down. I smiled and nodded, wanting to say that I wake up, brew the perfect espresso and go for a morning jog. But instead, I ventured into a discussion of how I actually roll:

I can’t believe it is only Tuesday. TUESDAY PEOPLE!!!  This may be one of the longest weeks ever. It may also be that I am coming off of being sick,and not working a full work week and that I had a great weekend. Meh, either way, Friday sure could hurry up and visit. That would not break my heart.

Speaking of the weekend-it was lovely!
Friday brought around a decision to get a goat. Of course, the decision was spurred on by two things: Beer in an unspecified amount, and this picture from Twisted Vines Farm:

Seriously. How can you not see that face and THAT SCARF and not want him or her?!  Sigh. I convinced my loving and ever so slightly beery partner that i wanted this, nay, NEEDED this goat (or any goat). He reluctantly agreed. Its not 4 full days later, and I still think this little guy may be the coolest thing ever. For the love of Pete, he has a smirk! He’s a sarcastic goat with a scarf. Its like he was made for me. Also, he looks very soft…not like cows, which (and no offense to cow lovers) are not soft. At all. It broke my heart to find out cows weren’t soft and this was maybe 10 years ago. I am still pretty pissed about that. 😉

But I digress. I did not get said goat. As much as I would love a fuzzy critter crapping in my back yard, I do have neighbors, and a job. I did have some very salient points though, had my drunken decision resulted in goat-buying. For instance, I would tell my neighbors:

• He IS wearing a scarf. He is clearly a civilized goat, not like that sneaky goat behind him!
• He could be a she (I didn’t check into it that much), if that were the case, there could be milk.
• If there was milk, then there could be cheese!
• I could make yarn (or is that just sheep? Hmm…it is pretty apparent that I didn’t plan this out)
• If its a boy goat, then, he would be fierce and goat-manly and defend things. He could be a security goat.
• He would eat weeds – this may be the only well thought out and truthful item on here.

Currently, the title of this post is Pants-big girl and otherwise. I’ll probably change it by the time I finish jotting my thoughts down. It seems fitting (pun only slightly intended), that I use that title, and here’s why:
Pants, in the literal sense: I have been sick the past few days, and have been living in pajamas. Seriously. I haven’t left the house since late Sunday and have been working from home. I have big hair, a cough, and it ain’t pretty. Be glad you’re not here to witness it!
But it also means Big girl pants. There’s been change happening, which has required big girl pants to be worn! After 5 (quite) long months, my mom moved into her own place. I am really proud of her for venturing out and getting her own place, but am so, so glad to have my craft room back.

Speaking of….I’ve almost finished my first quilt. Its not the one I have been working on for eons, but a pretty blue one. After I finish this post, I’ll be putting the binding on. I am so excited to see this project done 🙂

No big news on my end, just a quick germy update 🙂

Hope all of you are doing well! And hey, look at that, the title stayed!
Cheers,
Raina

That is really the only way that today can be described. Blame it on hormones, too many cookies, or just a lack of patience, today can suck it.  I’m not normally a grumpy person. In fact, I usually get the feedback that my perkiness level could use a little dialing down. Today, I am just in a grumpy mood.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people fail to meet basic expectations-on life, on promises, or just in general at functioning as a entry level adult. It’s not really hard-put on your big boy/girl pants, take a shower and get your shit-show on the road. Don’t make promises that you can’t and won’t keep, and don’t make promises that are conditional. It makes you..well…It makes you a damn asshat, for a lack of a better word. I seem to be running into situations where when push comes to shove, and grown up decisions are being made, people bail. It happens, but it seems to be happening a lot.

Deeeeeeep Exhale. Ok. Now that’s off of my shoulders and out of my head…updates!!!

Now that football season is officially behind us, and the sun has been coming out more, its time to get out and get gardening! I started some lettuce and pac choy this weekend, and started to map out the garden beds. The chickens have been doing their best to keep the weeds in check, and I am enjoying hearing their happy little clucks as they have their dirt bath.

I’m closer to finishing a quilt, but the one that I have been working on for years sits to the side. I think I have hit a place that I am feeling stuck, so I’ll probably just put it away to pull it out at a later date.

There’s some other changes in the works, but I am not quite ready to get into them, its all good stuff, just waiting for now.

Hope all is well, and your level of asshattery is at a minimum.

Best
Raina

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
P. J. O’Rourke