Pines On My Mind

Ponderosa Pines with the San Francisco Peaks on the background

Well, I've done it. I've changed my blog name. It's something that I should have done long ago, but just never got around to doing because I thought that it would be this daunting process that would fully expose my ineptitude in all things tech. Turns out I just went into my settings, picked a new name, and hit the Save button. I'm glad no one else had this name already, which I was a little surprised by. Normally I don't see myself as being the first to think of anything creative, as creativity is often times a huge struggle for me.

Sunset through the pines

So, a little back story. I originally came up with the title Eat. Poop. Live. as a play on the book Eat. Pray. Love. I felt that my title represented me pretty well, as I love to eat, I've been known for years as a person who talks far more than she should about poop, and I'm all about getting out there and living your life. Pretty perfect, right? Not so much when you string those words together in a sentence with no other context.

Snow on the Pines

It was just over a year ago that my friend Colton drove to Flagstaff from Arkansas to visit Simon and I. We had a great time tooling around northern Arizona, showing him all that things that we love so much about living out here. It came up at one point that I had a blog. Colton wanted to read it, so I texted him the URL of the blog so he could find it. He texted me back not long after, wanting to make sure that I had actually sent him the right blog address, and that he wasn't going to end up on some site where people were eating poop, live on camera.

Home sweet home, surrounded by Ponderosas

I was horrified. How had I NEVER noticed that? How had I NEVER even thought about it? Seriously...me, the poop talker. To my credit, the subject of anyone eating poop very rarely comes up in my poop musings because that's just gross. No one should be eating poop. However, there is a subculture out there who do, and to each their own, but I was pretty disgusted and embarrassed to be linked to them in any way, shape, or form.

Getting ready to ride into the pines

So yeah...Eat. Poop. Live. had to go. Now that I'm 40 and feel like an actual adult (mostly), it seems like a good time to make the change. I've been thinking about it the last few weeks, and truth be told, it's hard to come up with a short little phrase to describe yourself that is both catchy and representative. Some of my favorite blog titles of blogs that I frequent: Bits of Sunshine, Pinch of Yum, Minimal Effort; to name a few. I feel like each of these blog titles represents their authors or what they're trying to convey in their blogs, and that's something I wanted too.

Rainbows, Ponderosas, Grand Canyon...do I really live here???

So why Pines On My Mind? Well, for starters, I live in the largest Ponderosa Pine forest on the planet. They are everywhere. I see them everyday, I interact with them in some way each and every day; they have become a consistent part of my life, and one that I'm mostly grateful to have. I love being out in the middle of the woods and taking a moment to be quiet, to listen to the sound of the wind through the trees. There's something very unique sounding about wind through pines. On a warm day, if you get close and smell the bark of a Ponderosa on the sunny side, you're met with the faint scent of caramel and vanilla. Sometimes in the summer on really warm days the whole forest smells like that. Some Ponderosas are tall and spindly, some are bushy, some are gnarly...there's a lot of variety in how they look. They are the welcome sign when we are driving up from Phoenix, letting us know that we are almost to 7,000 feet of elevation and are almost home. They can be fragile, in that they grow in rocky soil and sometimes have difficulty putting down deep roots, and are sometimes blown over by the very wind that we enjoy hearing so much. We recently had to have the biggest Ponderosa on our property removed after it blew over in a wind storm. It's sad to look out into the back yard now, seeing the stump; it's all that remains of what used to be a big, beautiful tree. What Ponderosas might lack in a root system they make up for in resilience, surviving wind, forest fires, snow, rain, heat, bugs. There are dead Ponderosa skeletons dotting the forest, looking both spooky and regal at the same time. In the fall and spring the needles that they drop all over everything are the bane of my existence. I didn't think anything could be worse than raking oak leaves. I was mistaken. They're pokey, they're sappy, and they nearly destroy any sort of lawn bag you try to put them in.

Pine viewing from the hammock

These pines...they're a part of me now, and I found it fitting to include them in my blog, which is a part of me that I share with you. 

Checking in

Good morning everyone! Well, it's been a minute since I last wrote a post, and usual, I'm sorry about that. The creativity has been low around here as of late, and rather than throwing half-assed, poorly thought-out drivel at you, I decided it was best to wait until something inspiring came along to blog about.

While this blog might not be all that inspiring, there are a few things I want to talk about. It feels good to write again. I wish I had this creative energy more often!

First things first, it's just after 6am...what the heck am I doing awake at this hour, blogging away in my bathrobe? The answer? I have no idea. Over the past few months I've been waking up earlier and earlier. I'm not sure if this is a hormonal change, a life change, the changing of the seasons, or what but I can't say that I'm overly disappointed by it. Truth be told, I'm a morning person; always have been. Which is weird considering that I've worked night shift for 17 years. The funny thing is that while I might truly be a morning person on my days off, I'm definitely a better working person at night. I sleep pretty well during the day, and function pretty normally at night, so it all works out. However, on my days off, I'm lucky if I stay awake past 9pm. Sometimes I even slink off to bed just after 7pm, being ridiculed by Simon for my walk of shame down the hallway and into the bed. So yeah, the sleeping habits have definitely changed over the course of the past year. I'm not upset about it, just taking it all in with mild curiosity about what comes next.

Part of the reason I'm blogging so early this morning is that I'm waiting for it to be light enough outside for me to safely go for a run. Yes, I've started running again. Don't alert the press or anything as I've yet to establish any sort of regularity in running, but over the past week I've ran 4 times, which is huge for me. After loudly proclaiming that I was never going to the do the Imogene Pass Run again, after this year's somewhat disasterly couch-to-Imogene run (not recommended), the idea of doing Imogene again has been creeping into my head. It might be a case of enough time having passed since the suffering occurred that I've forgotten how awful it was. But I do remember how awful it was. I remember how much it hurt to move, to breathe, to think, to carry on a conversation. I remember all of those things. And yet...I remember the camaraderie between the runners of all ages, shapes, and abilities and remember how good it felt to be a part of all that. Mostly I remember how fun it was to be in a place with its almost unparalleled beauty, doing a run (hike) like that with some of my closest friends in Flagstaff. There are not many people in this world who have been privy to me having a meltdown, and there's probably even less of them that would support me through it, let alone stick around for it at all, but Tess did. She believed in me and she waited for me when I fell behind, even though she didn't have to and her finish time definitely suffered for it. It meant so much to me. So I can't do Imogene without training this time. I can't even consider it. If I don't start adding running to my list of physical activities for the week I shouldn't even sign up. It's dangerous to go into something like that with no training. I could have been seriously hurt or worse. It's a testament to my physical ability that I can do something like that with no training, but it's also a glaring example of my stupidity and lack of discipline. If I want to do the things, I have to put in the work. End of story.

I'm still enjoying yoga as my place of refuge. It's funny how I can be having a bad day, or just be in a grumpy mood, and the minute I enter that warm, toasty studio and start deep breathing, it all just melts away. I just can't say enough about yoga, and Yoga Revolution studio in particular, has brought about such good, positive change in my life.

I'm continuing to make my way through this concept of adulting. It's weird, and I'll touch more on that later. Being an adult is challenging, and we're living in an age where working and maintaining a home and a family takes so much less time than it did for our parents and grandparents. We make more money, we have more free time, time management has been optimized by technology, and we've reached a point in life where we sometimes struggle to find productive and meaningful things to fill the space. I really never thought it would be this challenging to be an adult. My parents seemed to have it all together when I was growing up, so naturally I thought that I would too. It's possible that maybe they didn't have it as together as I perceived, or maybe our generational and lifestyle differences don't make for fair comparisons. So I'm working on that. Working on my relationships with others, working on being more present at work, working on being a presence here in Flagstaff, working on compromising when I can and sticking to my guns when I can't.

First things first, I have decided I will not drink crappy beer. I know it sounds silly, but life is too short and calories are too abundant to waste them on something that tastes bad. The argument could be made that I don't drink enough water on a daily basis anyway, so drinking water in lieu of drinking crappy beer is an acceptable alternative. I know that makes me sound like a snob, but I like what I like and with this burgeoning waistline of mine, it's probably in my best interest to have some standards...hahaha!

In a completely different area of compromise, I've gotten to the point where I don't allow people to treat me poorly. Friends, family, coworkers, patients; no one gets a pass here for bad behavior. Once maybe if you're having a bad day (props given for apologizing afterwards), but that's it. For a long time I had people in my life who really didn't treat me all that well, and for a long time I put up with it because I figured I must have been doing something to deserve it. So I tried over and over again to be the person that I thought they wanted me to be, to please them, to bring something interesting to the table, to receive less scorn and more friendship, but some of these people would always find some reason to continue to bring me down. After some long chats with a therapist and friends who are counselors, I realized that my friendship is valuable, and that people who are going to treat me poorly are undeserving of it. Here's the flip side of this whole concept: I used to be one of those people who treated other people poorly. It's true. I was so insecure, and unhappy, and jealous that I wanted those around me who seemed to have it all figured out to come down to my level. I could be a very nasty person. There are days that I think back to things I said and did to some of my closest friends, and it makes me cringe. The fact that most of those people stuck with me and are still some of my very best friends is astonishing to me. They should have kicked my ass to the curb and not looked back. But they didn't, and I'm so eternally grateful that they must have seen something in me worth sticking around for. I hope that keeping me in their circles has been as valuable to them as it has been to me.

It's no secret that I've struggled with being so far away from my friends and family back in Minnesota, and all over the country, for that matter. I fly home at least 4 times a year to see them, which some might find excessive, but I find it to be pretty necessary to my emotional and mental well-being. No one knows you like those who have known you the longest, and I crave that companionship so very much at times.  Not that Flagstaff is new to me at this point (7 years in!), but it's still taken some time for me to establish who I am here and where I fit in. In the past year or so, I feel like I've really solidified some pretty amazing friendships here, and I'm so very stoked about that. I was a little concerned that it was taking so long, but making adult friends in a new place is so incredibly challenging...much more challenging than I ever thought it could be. It makes sense though...as adults we've pretty much established who we are as human beings...what we like, what we don't like, where we like to go, what we like to eat, compromises that are worth making and compromises that are not. Adults tend to already have a lot of people in their lives, and it can be challenging putting in the time and work it takes to maintain new friendships.

Flagstaff's culture has also been a challenge for me. It's very very different from Minnesota's culture. That's not good, bad, or otherwise...it just is what it is and it's something that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, dabbling in, and exploring. Flagstaff can be a pretty intimidating place in some ways. There are a lot of athletes in this town, which makes my benchwarmer past even more apparent. That's on me to be insecure about it, and I've gotten less so as the years have gone on. Being a mediocre dabbler in most things athletic, it's been hard to find my niche as I'm good enough at most things to do them in some capacity, but I'm not proficient enough nor do I enjoy them as much to keep up with those who have been partaking in their particular sport for years and years. A lot of people here tend to gravitate towards one particular sport and stick with it through the long haul. You have climbers, hikers, mountain bikers, runners, road bikers...all kinds of outdoor enthusiasts, and sometimes they're not always willing to cross-dabble in each other's sports. Which is fine for them, but it makes it hard to find mediocre athletes such as myself willing to try a variety of things to stay active and get outside. Truth be told, my motivation to try new things or put in the time on established activities is poor. I hate struggling. If I can't be instantly good at something I don't want to do it. Admittedly, it's a huge character flaw, but luckily I have friends who are unwilling to accept my mediocrity and drag me out of the house whenever they can.

Between July and October, I traveled a lot. So much so that it was almost to the point that I was unpacking my travel bag from one trip and filling it back up for the next trip on the very same day. I would travel, come home and work, and then travel again. During this period of time I went to Minnesota twice, Colorado for the Imogene Pass Run, out of town for a friend's wedding, to Portugal for a birthday trip of sorts, and to Seattle to see our friends Jim and Jess and to meet their adorable little girl, Raegan. Before I get too far into this and sound like an ingrate, let me start by saying I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have the means, the time, and the ability to travel as much as I do. I'm also super fortunate to have friends all over the country to visit. As of late, I've noticed that rather than people asking me about how I am or what I've been up to, they ask me where my next trip is, because that's who I've become to them...someone who is constantly coming and going. I've struggled with this a bit. Flagstaff is my home and I've made some very wonderful friendships here, but I've become that friend who is never around, and that bothers me because it makes me feel unreliable, like I'm not just physically absent, but emotionally absent as well. I've noticed that people don't call and ask me to do things with them as much as they used to, and I'm sure part of it has to do with the fact that I'm always declining because I'm not around. I keep saying no, they stop asking; it's a pretty simple concept. These last few days are the first days in a long time that I've been off work and at home, and they've been so wonderful. Simon and I knocked out a bunch of projects that we'd been shelving for months, I started going back to the gym for my weightlifting class, I've been meeting up with friends I haven't seen in a while, we had people over to the house for a BBQ and card games, we caught up on a couple HBO and Netflix series...it all feels so blissfully normal and I'm so content to just be here with nothing but shifts at work and coffee dates on the calendar for the next couple months.

The funny thing is, and I know my friends with children will afford me no sympathy and maybe won't even be able to empathize with this perspective, is that sometimes I'm a little envious of my friends with kids, because for the most part, their options in what they do with their lives, where they go, who they associate with, where they live, how they spend their money, are by and large determined by their children. I have friends whose lives are completely dominated by music lessons, soccer practice, swim lessons, play dates, and bible school; they don't just feel obligated by it, they're happy about it, and it's accepted that it's what you do when you have children. Having things in my life that are required rather than optional speaks to my (and maybe other people's too) need/craving for structure. Give me a day off with nothing to do and more often than not I'll sit on the couch watching Netflix all day. No one is depending on me to do anything, so I don't. But then other days I get shit done and I'm super productive. My point is that there's nothing strongly driving me to be productive. It's a choice and it's one that I don't have to make because there's rarely anyone else depending on me to make it. As long as the dogs are fed and they make it outside at least twice, maybe I eat something at some point, the rest of the day is open to whatever. Sometimes having too many options and too much freedom is stressful in a way that's hard for me to articulate, but I'll do my best. As a childless person, I still search for meaning in my life, and there are times when I don't really know what that's supposed to look like, because from the moment I was old enough to understand a concept, it was that you grow up, you get a job, you get married, you have kids, you might take a road trip or two in the summer, and that's your life. I wasn't prepared for life without children because that wasn't something that anyone did; it was the option that wasn't presented as an option. In fact, people who didn't have children were often pitied, looked down upon, or completely misunderstood. Everyone I grew up near had children, and the vast majority of my friends and family have children or are actively trying. The desire to have children isn't something I don't necessarily understand; I get why people want those little buggers in their lives, but it wasn't something I desired to have in my own life, and while I don't regret my decision to not have children, and I immensely enjoy other people's children, I'm still working through what life is supposed to look like without them.

Is it doing all the things? Is it having an amazing wardrobe? Is it traveling constantly? Is it having a beautiful home full of breakable trinkets? Is it becoming the crazy dog lady? Is it being the fun auntie to my family and friends? Is it amassing a huge collection of magnets on the fridge to document where I've been and what I've done? Does every choice I make and everything I do truly need to be meaningful? Sometimes I feel bad when I get back from a trip and my friends with kids who don't get to travel as much want to know all about it, and given my lack of story-telling abilities, I give a somewhat disappointing recap of what I did, what I ate, where I went. Traveling is interesting and all, but unless something truly interesting happens, it's hard to know what to tell about it. I can't make someone taste the amazing risotto that I ate, I can't describe the terraced vineyards along the Douro River in a way that does them any sort of justice, I can't fully describe the feeling of stumbling over cobblestones in the late hours of the night in Lisbon, hearing Fado music drifting out from the local bars, I can't fully explain the fluttering in my heart at drinking tea in the wee hours of the morning as elephants walk by on their way to the river. Well, maybe I can. It's just hard to do on the spot. Most of the time my stories go something like this: "We went to this place and we ate this stuff and we saw these things and then we did this outing and it was really cool and now we're home." My storytelling needs work, for sure. So here goes: I'll never forget the time that we were in Florida with our friends Ellen and Fred on their boat, and we stayed out too long and got nearly beached as the tide was going out. Three of us had to get out of the boat to make it more buoyant and to push it off the sandbar. We pushed it for quite a while, because once we were off the sandbar we were in the weeds and couldn't start the engine in all that muck. For a brief moment, I thought for sure we'd be stuck out there for the night until the tide came back in. It was dark, I was cold, I was tired, I was hungry, I was thirsty, and I just wanted to get back home. You can about imagine my attitude throughout all of this (she who hates to struggle...hahaha). After getting back on the boat and well on our way back to our house, we were grumbling a bit about it, and Fred said, "Well, at least we have a story to tell about it. If that hadn't happened, we probably wouldn't still be talking about it at all." And it's so true. I feel like my friends with kids have the best stories because kids are always getting into stuff, causing trouble, pooping their pants at inopportune moments, and saying the most ridiculous things. Kids can be pretty unpredictable and unpredictability in life makes for good stories. So the takeaway from all of this is that the next time I'm at a National Park, I should poop my pants.

Over the course of all this traveling and soul-searching, I've come to realize a few things about myself. I am most definitely, 100%, a people person. I love people. But most of all, I love my people. I love going to exotic places with my friends just as much as I enjoy having a cup of coffee with them at a local cafe. Some of my fondest memories of the places I've been are not necessarily the places, but the experience of being somewhere different with the people who came along. I love having shared experiences with those who I treasure the most. I love seeing the wonder on my friends' faces when they see the Grand Canyon for the very first time. I remember the reverent silence in the car when Simon, my friend Dave, and I emerged from the tunnel overlooking the entire Yosemite Valley. I remember those long, miserable bus trips in Costa Rica over those slow, rumbly roads, sitting next to my friend Ellen the whole time, watching the jungle roll on by, counting down the minutes until we got to get out and hike to a volcano, or see a monkey, or feed a giant iguana an entire head of lettuce. Overlooking the entirety of the city of Lisbon at night wouldn't have been as magical without Simon by my side to share it with me. I went to the north rim of the Grand Canyon three years in a row with the same people, staying at the same campsite, drinking prickly pear margaritas at the same saloon, and had a blast each and every time. A lot of times, the things I remember most about a trip aren't necessarily the places we went, but the way I felt in the company of those there beside me, experiencing all those things together. Friendship is magical.

I've also come to realize that nature is kind of my jam when it comes to traveling. I love being outside, seeing the animals, the trees, the horizon dotted with palm trees or mountains. Sometimes it feels like once you've seen one big city, you've seen them all. I know that's not true and that a lot of cities have a lot to offer a traveler, but the older I get and the more I like experiencing nature, that's how it's starting to feel for me. I enjoy a good meal, a good cup of coffee, and people watching in a new place as much as the next person, but what I really enjoy is crawling out of a warm bed into a cool morning, unzipping the tent and taking in the low morning light, firing up the campstove for that first cup of coffee, and contemplating the day's hike, the next experience, what we're going to see and do, hearing nothing but the wind through the trees and the birds starting their day. I like having beers around the campfire in the evening, hearing the coyotes sing their night songs, and seeing the stars put on a show. I'm not so good at planning trips around experiences in nature. Booking a hotel, a flight, and a rental car is easy, but planning a trip where you have to worry about resources, water, where you're going to camp, what you're going to carry on your back, how the weather might affect your experience, whether or not your vehicle can get you there...that's all very foreign to me. I used to plan camping trips with my friends every summer, but we went to state parks which were full of other people; it was fun at the time but I don't know that I would enjoy it as much not. I've noticed that state and national parks these days seem to be full of people who are not very respectful of the natural space they were treading upon. A lot of them can't even be bothered to get out of their cars, or find themselves injured trying to capture that perfect selfie because no one told them nature can be dangerous. I don't know how many people getting trampled by bison or falling over the edge of the Grand Canyon it's going to take before people start respecting nature. The trash and destruction to our national parks during the government shutdown was infuriating and heartbreaking. People who truly want to be out in nature don't do things like that, and I feel like our parks are becoming less about nature and more about providing a theme park experience in a natural environment...but how else do you get this current population of social media and smartphone obsessed individuals to care about nature? While the parks offer all the amenities and ease of getting the average person into nature, there's a lot of other unpleasantness that can come along with it. Which leaves off-the-grid camping, something that this girl from the Midwest who grew up surrounded by privately-owned land is still trying to figure out. I must have seemed completely daft when I first moved here, when I just couldn't understand the idea that you can go out into the woods and pitch a tent pretty much wherever you like. You'd get arrested for doing something like that in Minnesota, but here in Arizona, there's so much public land that you can camp just about wherever the vehicle you're in can drive, or wherever your two feet can carry you. It's a whole new learning experience and it's intimidating for me. I much prefer to have my friends who do a lot of back country camping just invite me along on their trips (hint hint).

I guess I'll just keep on keeping on, figuring things out one day at a time. :)       

Ponderings on Eating

I'm sure there's a handful of you who have seen the Fairlife Dairy Farms video that's been circulating on Facebook as of late. Some of you may have started watching it and stopped, some of you may have watched to the end and pushed your device away in disgust (as I did), some of you may have scrolled on by, not wanting to participate in watching for various reasons, including, but not limited to: guilt, shame, indifference, weak stomachs, social awareness fatigue, media bias, etc. The reason I bring it up is that the Fairlife video isn't the first nor will it be the last of its kind. Animal abuse in the food industry is also not new, nor is it something that's likely to go away anytime in the future without radical changes on both the local and political level, but that's a conversation for another time.

My whole point with this conversation is that for years I've been conflicted with how I feel about my consumption of animal products and the knowledge of how animals are treated prior to landing on my plate. I grew up in a small, rural farming community in Minnesota. I had both friends and family who made their living off of raising animals for consumption, whether it was dairy, beef, pork, or various aspects of poultry. In middle school, I had a good friend who lived on a dairy farm, and I loved going out there to help out with the chores. Obviously doing chores on a dairy farm is far from glamorous, but to a city kid getting dirty and being around farm animals for a couple days was like taking a trip to an exotic country. Clearly my ideas of what constitutes exotic trips has changed over the years, although I did travel all the way to Thailand to shovel elephant poop, so maybe they haven't changed all that much...hahaha!

Holstein painting by Dottie Dracos

 It's hard to describe the sensory experience one can have in a small dairy barn. Every single sense is stimulated in ways that can be hard to describe, but I'll do my best.

I would have to say that the first thing a you notice in a dairy barn is the smell, and I'm not just talking about poop, although that can be a pretty strong smell. It's the smell of hay, of furry bodies, of cow breath. You walk into the room that houses the bulk tank (where the milk goes after it comes out of the cow) and it smells like something between cheese and milk and something I can't articulate, but once you've smelled it, you'll be able to recognize it for the rest of your life. Not off-putting, but not something that will ever be featured in a scent of the month at a candle shop. There's a vague sweetness to the scent of it. You walk into the barn and you see a row of rubber boots, which you don immediately upon entering because the odds of stepping in something that you'd rather not get on your normal shoes is high. They're barn boots...that's where they are, and that's where they stay. And thank goodness they can be cleaned off with a simple spray of the hose at the end of the day. You see dust motes and hay dust floating on the breeze created by the fans, you see cats darting around underneath the cows, you might see a dog or two wandering up and down the main aisle, you see cows in their stalls munching away on the hay and a small sprinkle of grain that's been set out for them, you see every imaginable pattern of black and white on their large bodies, you see their big strong hooves, and can't help but think about how much it would hurt to get stepped on, you see their watering devices, which are shallow little bowls with a paddle in the middle that a cow presses on with her nose to get the water to come out, or sometimes you just see individual buckets filled with water, kinda depends on the farm. You might hear Oldies music playing softly on the radio. You also hear the loud gentle breathing of the cows, you hear them munching away, you hear soft contented moos and you hear louder irritable moos, you hear them randomly shuffling their feet around or stamping their hooves when they're bothered; you hear the pumps bringing the milk from the milkers attached to the teats all the way to its final destination at the bulk tank. You feel the warmth of their bodies, the slimy wet lick on your hand when they're convinced you've got a treat for them, their simultaneously soft but not-soft hair, you feel the scratchiness of the hay as it pokes through your barn gloves, you feel the callouses and blisters forming on your hands as you wield a shovel or a pitchfork to clean out each stall.

 I remember going out to my friend Krista's farm. She lived on a dairy farm with her parents and her two older brothers. Random fun fact: Krista taught me how to shave my legs without it looking like a blind person with a lawnmower blade had done it. Ha! Back in those days, most small farms didn't have hired hands, that's what the kids were for. I would stay overnight at her house, and we would get up in the wee hours of the morning to go out to the barn to help with the chores. I had itty bitty feet back in those days, and so the barn boots that they had for me to wear were far too large, but they kept my feet clean and dry so they did what they were supposed to do; I just shuffled and clomped about trying to keep up with Krista and her brothers, who were far less enthused about the morning chores than I was. The novelty of tromping around in barn boots in the wee hours of the morning had long ago worn off for them, had it ever been there at all. To be honest, I was probably more of a hindrance than anything, being a city kid and all, but I did my best and they put up with me and it seemed like we were all having fun. Maybe having a random little weirdo tearing around the barn in boots three sizes too big was refreshing if not somewhat entertaining for them. I'd like to think so, anyway.

On Krista's farm, every cow had a name, and every cow had her own stall with her name on it where she was milked twice a day; once in the morning, and once in the evening. If I remember correctly, the cows slept in the barn at night and were let out into the grassy pasture after the morning milking, where they would spend the day until it was time to come back into the barn for the evening milking, which was always a bit of a production. I was not allowed in the main aisle of the barn when the cows were let in for the evening, as it was quite the process and could quite possibly have ended in an accidental trampling. What most people don't realize about cows, is that they are sensitive but stubborn creatures of habit, both good and bad, which is something that a small dairy farmer and his kids know like the backs of their hands. Random city kid, not so much. For example...Bessie always comes in first, and may the force be with whomever gets in her way. Constance always goes into Millie's stall, which results in a small scuffle; a scuffle in this instance being a bunch of disgruntled mooing and stomping of the cloven hooves. Constance is then shamed into her own stall, at which point Millie can proudly claim her spot. Mabel and Lizzie always come in side-by-side. Dorie is always the last to come into the barn, and is admonished with a "quit lollygagging back there!" by one of the kids, and gets a knowing swat on her rear as she ambles on by. What is most impressive about this whole situation, it how orderly and repetitive it is. Every evening is the mostly the same.

After everyone is settled in their freshly cleaned and straw lined stalls, with a nice cube of hay and some corn to munch on, the milking can begin. Farmer and kids move from cow to cow, cleaning her teats and attaching the milkers, sometimes randomly squirting a bit of milk in the direction of one of the many barn cats looking for a handout. I wasn't allowed to help with this part as cleanliness and proper milker attachment is paramount and absolutely not a job for a city kid, so I busied myself with jumping back and forth over the gutters, trying not to fall in (it happened only once that I can remember) and making sure to avoid getting too close to the rear-ends of the cows who were known kickers. After the majority of the milking was done, I remember wandering from cow to cow, giving them a random scratch behind the ears, or a bit of apple or carrot as a treat, fascinated by their long purple tongues and their huge brown eyes. I remember how Krista would point out the nicest cows to me, and we would find two who were laying down next to each other, and we would each settle ourselves in on a cow, resting in the soft warm spot between her belly and her rear leg, slowly rising and lowering with her breath. The original recliner. We would sit like that for as long as her dad would allow, talking about whatever 11 year-olds talk about...probably boys and horses, if I was allowed a good guess. When it was time to turn the lights out we'd leave the barn full of sleeping cows, waking in the morning to do it all over again.

Helga cuddling her cows (from thecowsanctuary.org)

As I write this, I find myself tearing up just a little bit, thinking about all those good memories from my time spent in a dairy barn. These aren't memories that I access often because I feel so far removed from the farmland I used to know so well, both physically and emotionally. It's probably hard for someone who's never been in a barn to empathize with these stories, but some of my best childhood memories were spent on farms, in barns, getting dirty and spending time with these wonderful, gentle creatures. They're experiences that I cherish, and thinking about them makes me happy, but also makes me a little sad.

Sad because I know that most animals who spend their entire lives in factory farms don't have names. They don't have people scratching their heads or hand-feeding them snacks of apples and carrots. They're born in captivity, they spend their entire lives in captivity, and they die in captivity, known only by a number that was assigned to them at birth. Some of them never get the opportunity to go outside and feel the sunshine on their bodies or feel the breeze on their faces. They don't spend their lives being scratched and rubbed and climbed upon by children; the children of factory farms having been replaced by hired hands, many of whom are over worked and under paid and have little time or use for showing a big stubborn animal any extra kindness.

So I'm conflicted. My memories of the dairy farms of my youth are so very far removed from the videos online where farmers and their hired hands are physically abusing the animals they're raising. I wish there was a simple way to be certain that every animal product I consumed came from a small family farm, where the animals were given names, and love, and treats, and were respected for their sacrifice. It's so easy to walk into a store and buy a pound of hamburger, a gallon of milk, a pound of bacon, or a container of cottage cheese and not give two thoughts as to where it came from or how the animal was treated.

Holstein painting by Brent Schreiber

 I'm not going to sit here and admonish people for the choices that they make when it comes to food. That's not what this is about. What this is about is me being affected by something that's been bothering me for a while, and trying to make changes in my own life regarding my usage of animal products. As a consumer of animal products and also someone who really enjoys animals in their living forms, I feel it's my responsibility to find a way to be better about how I use animal products. If that means eliminating some animal products from my life, then that's what it means. If it means I consume less of certain animal products, then that's what it means. If I find a way to acquire animal products from small farmers who are committed to giving their animals names and treating them humanely and with dignity and respect, then that's what it means. 

It's a process, and it's one that I've started and quit time and time again. I know it's going to be a challenge, as not only have I mentally and culturally gotten used to eating a way a certain way, but my body has as well. Things are always subject to change, and this isn't something I'm going to be rigid with, because I've got to live my life too. I think the most successful changes are the ones that are developed gradually, with the option to change your trajectory as new information is obtained. So that's where I'm at.

If you're a small family farmer and you have your own little flock of chickens, or herd of cows, or passel of hogs (how cute is that?), give them a pat and a treat for me. They deserve it. :)

2019 Betterments

I just spent a little time going over my 2018 Betterments to have an idea of what I had planned to work on a year ago, compared to what I want to work on this year. It's funny, I go around thinking that things don't change all that much from year to year, but they definitely do. Last year I was committed to spending less money, working out more, bike commuting, selling the camper van, starting a low-carb diet, drinking less coffee, starting my own IVs at the hospital, and writing more in my gratitude journal. Well...I accomplished some of those things.

Simon and I did manage to sell the van, which was a one-and-done kind of Betterment, so that one was actually the easiest of the lot. Spending less money...ha...that's laughable. We bought a house this year and had all the regular expenses that go with it, along with my desire to furnish the place and make it feel like "our" space. While I wasn't as good about my spending as I should have been, I still managed to take my savings account from basically nothing following the down payment on the house, to close to half the amount that I put towards the down payment in the first place by the end of the year. I'm relatively pleased with that, but not patting myself on the back too much knowing that I could have been a lot better. Since we live 11 miles from work now, the bike commuting didn't pan out. I even bought an electric bike with the intention of commuting on it, and I hated it so much that I'm currently trying to sell that beastly thing. It's not the bike's fault...it's actually a really nice bike, it's just not for me. I did manage to work out more. I spend a lot more time at the gym than I used to, I started a personal training program, and I started going to yoga pretty regularly, so I think overall I succeeded in that Betterment. My last gratitude journal entry was from August 18, so that should tell you something about how well I did at that. I do drink a lot less coffee, and I think overall that's been a really nice change for me. I view coffee as a treat now, and save getting a warm, toasty mug of something sweet and spiced with nutmeg for those moments when I'm doing something nice for myself. I've also been better at starting IVs on my patients, and I'd have to say that I start more than I don't, so I'm getting better in that regard.

So there's that. Bring it on, 2019!

1. Focus on healthy eating. 2018 was the year of trying all sorts of different kinds of diets. I tried Keto, I tried Paleo, I tried Intermittent Fasting, I tried Vegetarian, I tried a friend's Slim Genics plan. Every single one was a fail, and some of them started to make me rather food-obsessed, which was a dark and unhealthy place I lived in during my senior year of high school. I don't want food to be my focus, but rather to focus on being healthy overall with food as a supporting player. Rather than committing to any sort of diet/eating lifestyle, I'm going to try to be more aware of all the foodstuffs I'm shoving into my mouth. And maybe do less shoving. I've always been a really fast eater, and therefore I think my biggest struggle is portion control. I remember in my 20's I used to eat until I was physically sick. I had a very unhealthy relationship with food, always thinking in the back of my mind when something really good was placed in front of me that I might not get it again for a long time, so I might as well dig in. As if that's a valid excuse to have three portions. Fast forward twenty years and throw in a declining metabolism, which just happens as we age, and you've got a recipe for disaster if you can't control what's going in your mouth. Over the years I've been better about portion control, but I could still use some work. I'm trying to focus on more whole-food eating, meaning I'm trying really hard to keep processed foods to a minimum. I'm trying to limit the amount of sugar that I have in my diet, although I still treat myself with the occasional chai latte, a Brussels cookie (sooo good!) or a piece of chocolate. I don't binge on sweets the way I used to binge on the salty stuff, which is a good thing. I can have one cookie or a couple pieces of chocolate and call it good. Chips, on the other hand, that's a different story. I've pretty much quit buying chips all together. We have a bag or two of tortilla chips in the house at any given time, but my beloved jalapeno Kettle Brand chips are nary to be found these days. It's a good thing. Every now and then I'll have a slip up and buy a bag and eat it all in one sitting and be sick for the next 24 hours, lamenting why I do things like that. Sometimes we just need reinforcement, right? So yeah, Simon and I have been trying to make most of our meals at home. I've been really getting into meal prep so that I always have some healthy options available in the fridge. I bought an Instant Pot and I love that thing...I probably use it at least once a week. I bought some new cook books, my favorites being the Run Fast/Eat Slow series from Shalane Flanagan, who used to be a local professional runner here in Flagstaff. I also have the Thug Kitchen books, which have lots of swearing and are all plant-based recipes...not that I'm going vegan or vegetarian, but eating less meat overall is something that I'm working towards. And last but not least, I follow the Pinch of Yum food blog, and I love her recipes so much...haven't found a stinker yet!

2. Do more yoga. Right now Yoga Revolution, the yoga studio I go to, is having their 30-day January challenge, where every class you take and every check-in you make enters you for a raffle at the end of the challenge. Everybody knows I love free stuff, and combining that with my recent love of yoga has gotten me in the studio more than ever this month. I want to keep that up, because yoga just makes me feel so good both mentally and physically. I honestly feel like I'm in the best shape of my life, and I feel like I have yoga to thank for it. My balance is better for skiing, my endurance and breathing is better for running, my form is better for weight lifting. I feel like I'm just more aware of what my body is doing, and how it's doing it, and I feel like the simple mindfulness of yoga has helped me get there. I'm trying to figure out a way to attend some of the yoga workshops...unfortunately their workshops all happen on Saturday afternoons, which is prime sleepy time for me following my regular Friday night shifts. Perhaps I'll start looking at changing up my schedule, because I think attending the workshops will give me some of the one-on-one time that I need to elevate my practice. Overall, this Betterment is already off to a good start. :)

My favorite space these days, Yoga Rev

3. Be more mindful about expenses. As per usual, here is the saving money Betterment. It wouldn't be a New Year's resolution post without it. This is probably my biggest ongoing challenge, as I'm definitely a person who is very much into instant gratification. I think I've mentioned before the high I get from buying things; anything at all from groceries to clothing to dog toys, which is not a good thing. I need to turn my head around and find value in what I'm doing, not what I'm spending. Since the first of the year, outside of a trip to Vegas, my spending has been on point. Outside of treats at a coffee shop, I've only bought myself a $7 tank top off eBay because I had eBay bucks to spend. Unnecessary, yes, as I could have just let the bucks expire, but I wanted a cute flowy top for yoga, and this was a good way to get one without spending much at all. Typically an eBay purchase leads to additional eBay purchases, but it didn't. I haven't been on eBay since. I don't know if you know, but this is huge for me. I've been able to dump a bunch of extra money into the mortgage while still adding money to savings. It's fun to watch the savings account grow and the mortgage amount decline (sooo slowly though). I just need to keep at it. Luckily I've got a thrifty spouse and some really thrifty friends, and their support and guidance has been huge for me. Throw in a few clothing exchanges with my girlfriends and half-price days at Goodwill and Savers and I've found myself the variety that I crave while spending little to no money to have it! I love the thrift stores here in town, and since discovering them I haven't bought a brand-new piece of clothing in months, but I need to limit my time in those as well, because even half-priced t-shirts from the Goodwill add up if left unchecked. It's so easy to overspend when you feel like you're getting a good deal.

Climbing ladders is free!

4. Choose experiences over things. This is really important, especially for me. While most things we do and the places we go entail spending money, there are ways to find value in those things without breaking the bank. For instance, when I go to a National Park, I almost always want to buy a benchmark magnet and a t-shirt to commemorate my visit. Why? I've got enough t-shirts to clothe several households of people, the last thing I need is another t-shirt. Or anything, really. Sometimes I just get in my head that I want something to commemorate a trip, or an experience, or a place; but what I really need is to be in the moment, make some memories, take some pictures, and call it good. I'm still relatively new at this, and continue to work at it. Luckily I've got Simon here encouraging me along the way.

Zip-lining with Simon, my brother, and Tori in Las Vegas

5. Buy a second car? Simon and I go back and forth on this one. To be honest, we really only need a second car during the winter and during monsoon season, and it's relatively rare at that. In the spring, summer, and fall months we can easily get by with the van, his motorcycle, and my scooter. The times that it's been an issue is mostly due to my gym and yoga schedule. I run into town every day if not twice a day to attend classes, which ties up the vehicle for Simon. Living out in Mountainaire has greatly diminished our carpooling opportunities with our in-town friends as well, which is a bit of a bummer but something that we made peace with when we decided to move out here. It would definitely be nice to have something four-wheel drive for going up to the ski hill in the winter. Right now Simon puts chains on the van and while that works, it's not something I'll ever do. I'm pulling the helpless female card on this one...the last thing I want to do is lay down in the cold mud to put chains on the van. I'd just rather not. Does my reluctance to get cold and dirty rationalize thousands of dollars in expense for a second vehicle? Not really...but...a cold and dirty Stefanie is not a happy Stefanie. At this point we're still holding off, but I've got a short of list of vehicles in my head that would be adequate if and when we decide to pull the trigger.

6. Stop running races. A wise woman once told me that retired runners make great bikers. I think I'm nearly there. I think 2019 is going to be my last year of running half marathons. While my races have taken me to some pretty cool places to run with some pretty cool people, it's getting less and less sustainable the older that I get. It's kind of sad, but I think it's time to quit while I can still walk without pain. My body just doesn't tolerate the long distances anymore. And let's be honest, given my excitement for organized races and my extreme reluctance to train for them, it's doubtful that it ever did. I really, really hate training, and couch to half-marathon is a terrible idea, but that's basically what I've been doing for the past few years. Don't get me wrong, I'm an active person and I engage in all sorts of physical activities, but if I don't run, I'm not going to be conditioned for running and eventually I'm going to cause some very real damage to my body. I've gotten pretty good at the run/walk approach to half-marathons, but when the adrenaline hits it's hard to not run when you're surrounded by all the energy and good cheer of the runners around you. I also typically talk other people into signing up for races with me, and unlike me, most of them actually train. Given that I was the initiator, I feel an obligation to keep up with them, and end up running far more and far faster than I typically would. So yeah, I'm looking at 5k and 10k races from here on out. There's a local running group here in town that does a 5k every Monday, starting and ending at a local brewery. Maybe if I can get running with them more consistently, I can re-evaluate my decision to nix the half-marathons. Until then, it looks like my last half-marathons will be Hawaii in April and Yosemite National Park in May...and possibly one in Alaska...thanks for that, Lindsey!

The Sedona 10k with Veronica and Charlotte

7. Hike/Camp more. In December I did a 39-mile backpacking hike with Simon and two of our friends on the Arizona Trail (AZT). It was the longest hike I've ever done. It was through a very beautiful part of Arizona that's slated to be re-routed as they make room for more mining, which is really sad. I'm glad I got to experience it though. We did about 13 miles each day, for 3 days straight. By the end of the hike I was dying, and if it weren't for all the chattering my friend Lindsay and I did over the last five miles, I may have just thrown myself on a century plant and ended it all...hahaha! It was pretty tough, and like my lack of conditioning for running, I wasn't accustomed to walking long distances over varied terrain while carrying 30-plus pounds of stuff on my back. Despite the challenges the hike produced, I absolutely loved it. I loved setting up camp at night and chatting about the things we saw that day, watching the stars come out, what we were going to eat when we got back to civilization. It was amazing being out in the wilderness and seeing almost no other human beings for miles and hours on end. It was so quiet and peaceful, which is something that's getting harder and harder to find these days with so much easy access to the wilderness. I'm definitely looking forward to the next long slog!

Hiking the AZT with Simon, Nick, and Lindsay

8. Foster cattle dogs and/or pugs. As some of you know, I attempted to adopt a cattle dog last fall, which was a pretty big fail, but an excellent and somewhat scary learning experience. I went into it thinking that it would be like adopting my previous cattle dog, Lady, who was so incredibly easy. I should have known that no two dogs are alike. I should have known that I was introducing this dog to Cooper far too quickly without taking the proper steps to make sure that they were safely and properly introduced. Luckily we realized quickly that it wasn't going to work out and ensured the safety of my little dude. I felt horribly about it. I had reached out to a friend of mine who fosters cattle dogs for a cattle dog rescue here in town, and she was very helpful and encouraged me to not give up on cattle dogs, that maybe this dog just wasn't the right dog. It's hard to know what that dog's background was or why she behaved the way she did. I reached out to the cattle dog rescue and am currently fostering a very sweet little girl named Kiki. She's a Shar-Pei cattle dog mix, and she's absolutely wonderful. She's been the perfect addition to our little family, and she's restored in me some of the confidence I lost when I had to return the other dog. It's hard to not fall in love with these little buggers and keep them all, but I'm going to do my best! Part of the reason I want to foster versus just outright adopt, is that I'm not really sure if I want another dog at this point. Cooper is still trucking along and doing well, but he's going to be 15 years old this year and it's only realistic to assume that he's got a year or so left with us, maybe not even that. After he's gone we might just want to be dogless for a bit, although I'm wondering how well I'll be able to handle that. I've had a dog in the house pretty much all my life. They bring me so much happiness and a sense of purpose, and they definitely curb my loneliness, and I think I would miss that if we didn't have a furry little buddy in the house. To bridge the gap to that decision, I think fostering dogs is the perfect solution. I get to help dogs find their forever homes, and I get to do so in an environment that isn't a shelter, which is so stressful for them. I can help people make a decision on whether or not a particular dog might be a good fit for their home, and their home a good fit for that dog. I'll have the advantage of actually knowing what a dog is like, rather than at the shelter where they know very little to nothing at all about a dog. I don't mean it to sound like I'm knocking shelters in any way, shape, or form; I actually used to work in a shelter and they are absolutely necessary and they do amazing work with what they're given, but they do have their limitations when it comes to making sure an animal is placed in a home with the highest chance of success. So we'll see how it goes. So far with Kiki it's going great. I can't imagine a better dog for our first foster. I've been dabbling with the idea of fostering a pug as well, but we'll see about that...pugs are a whole different animal!

Cooper and our foster dog, Kiki

9. Blog more. Of course this Betterment always has a spot. I love blogging. I don't know why I don't do it more. Sometimes I think the creativity factor isn't there, sometimes I'm just not in the mood, sometimes I just don't have anything to say. Sometimes my best ideas come to me on the fringes of sleep, only to be completely forgotten by morning. But I do enjoy it when I do it, so I should make a point to try to do it more. It seems like people enjoy reading my blogs as well, especially those who live far away and wonder what I'm up to, so I guess I should keep that in mind when I'm in a slump.


10. Ride my bike more. Since I'm planning to get out of running, I'm thinking that I should probably have something to replace it. Biking seems like a logical next step. I currently have a mountain bike and a fat bike/snow bike. While I used to be pretty gung-ho about mountain biking, it's definitely lost it's appeal for me over the past year. The danger factor and the risk for injury is never far from my thoughts when I'm out there on the bike, and that takes away from the experience for me. I know that there are easy trails out there that present little to no danger, and maybe I just need to get back to riding those. The trouble is that most of my friends have advanced far past me in their skills and abilities, and I feel bad holding them back to the easy trails. I guess I should just keep in mind that if they truly didn't want to ride with me, they wouldn't, and they wouldn't keep inviting me along on rides if they thought I couldn't do them. I think I just need to find a little more confidence and shed a little more of the fear. However, one thing I've really enjoyed recently is riding on gravel roads with my fat bike. I'm lucky in that I live in a place that has tons of public land, and within that public land is hundreds of miles of gravel roads, perfect for riding. There is a style of biking called gravel riding, where you basically just tear around on gravel roads for miles and miles. There's even races devoted to it, which I've intermittently thought about signing up for. But I don't think it makes much sense to do a gravel race on a fat bike, so I'd need another bike, and owning three bikes right now is just silly. Consider it a work in progress.

The fat bike, the love of my life...after Simon, of course

11. Drink more water. This is one Betterment I think everyone could stand to work on. I sometimes will go an entire day without drinking a single glass of water. Given that I don't drink soda, or coffee, or milk, or anything else really, that typically means that I'm not drinking anything at all. And then I wonder why I have headaches by the end of the day. So I'm working on that. My brother's girlfriend gave me a tumbler for Christmas with images of a pug doing yoga on it, and I've been drinking out of that for the past couple weeks, and I think I've actually been drinking more water because of that silly little cup. A little ridiculous that a cup should make a difference, but that's sometimes how these things are, and for now I'm going with it.

12. Figure out my scrapbook situation. So I've been saving ticket stubs, cards, photos, ribbons, and all manner of memorabilia from trips I've gone on, events I've attended, and places I've visited. I have an entire dresser full of scrapbooking stuff that really, really needs to be addressed. I struggle with the idea of scrapbooking though. Ideally, you scrapbook to have a momento of the places you've gone and the things that you've done, which is a great concept and nice visual reminder of all the fun you've had, and then you pass that book onto someone else when your time on this earth is about up. But what happens when I die and I've got no one to pass them on to? What happens to those books? Is anyone going to want them? Will anyone else find meaning in them or enjoy them? Is it even worth the time spent putting them together only to have them thrown away when I'm gone? I know I'm getting a little existential here, but if I'm going to put forth the effort of doing something, I want to feel like it's worth it. Scrapbooking can be as much or as little work as you want it to be, but in the end you're left with a book full of memories that means something to me, but might not mean a thing to anyone else. I guess if I find value in the books and look at them from time to time once they're finished, it probably doesn't matter what happens to them when I'm gone. At any rate, I need to do something with all that stuff.

Wow...twelve Betterments to work on. That's ambitious. Hopefully I can do better this year than I did last year. Given that I've already started on some of the Betterments, I'm already off to a good start. Here's to keeping at it, and having the best 2019 that I can. :)         

2018 Recap

Dang, it's been a slow year here for the blog posts, which isn't to say that nothing really happened in 2018...quite the opposite, really.  If you recall, I started out 2018 with a list of Betterments for myself, and I was doing all right up until about March, which isn't nothing, but it's nothing to brag about either.

One of the biggest accomplishments of 2018 was that Simon and I purchased our first home together. It's monumental really, given Simon's intense aversion to debt (but it's good debt, right??). It's a cute little log cabin in the neighborhood of Mountainaire, which is right outside Flagstaff. It's 1,100 square feet of pure cuteness, and has been such a great space for us to be. It's perched at the top of a rather precarious hill, but contrary to my initial reservations with a 2 wheel-drive vehicle, has been easy enough to get to the top of in inclement winter weather. It's got a great outdoor space, and the previous owners did a great job of setting us up with some very minimal and easy to manage landscaping. I was so excited to see a patch of irises come up this spring in the front yard. One of my favorite things about the cabin is the woodstove...it's so warm and cozy and has made winter that much more bearable. I'm still working on my fire-starting skills, which are hindered by the fact that I'm too lazy to cut kindling and try to start whole logs on fire using nothing but paper. Luckily Simon usually gets out of bed before me so he starts the majority of the fires (with kindling, because he likes any opportunity to use his hatchet). Needless to say, we love our new place and it was the perfect change that we needed after living and renting in Flagstaff for five and a half years. I guess this means we're staying here for a while. :)

Another big change for us in 2018 was selling our beloved but problematic camper van, BAVerly. She was a heartbreak kid, let me tell you. We learned several things during our two years with her, namely the most important one being that we will never, ever, ever, ever own a Mercedes ever again, nor will we ever recommend one to any of our friends. Say what you want about the reliability of luxury automobile manufacturers, when they start going downhill, they go fast and they take your savings account with them. We did have a lot of fun with her and she gave us some really cool experiences while she was with us, but her reliability had become sketchy at best and I wasn't sad in the least to see her go. We also traded in our Jeep for a minivan, an idea that was spearheaded by Simon, believe it or not. I was shocked, to be honest, as I've been joking for years about how we should get a minivan because they are the perfect multi-purpose vehicle. After having the minivan for most of 2018, we can definitely say that's absolutely true. From camping to road trips to Home Depot runs to gathering firewood to hauling carloads of friends, there's very little that this van can't do. Granted, it's not an exciting vehicle, but it gets the job done and we're pretty pleased with it.

In the spring of this year I fell in love with a Surly Moonlander, which is a fat bike, otherwise known as a snowbike to those who are disdainful of the very existence of fat bikes. To simplify matters, a fat bike is just a regular bike with really big tires. They can roll through mud, sand, and snow like a breeze, and can roll over just about anything that gets in their path. And oh my goodness how fun they are to ride. I think it's all the bouncing from those massive tires. Maybe some people don't like bouncing, but I get a kick out of it...hahaha! I don't think I've had this much fun on a bike since I was a little kid. I literally giggle and have a permanent smile on my face the whole time I'm riding. When I was still living in town, I commuted everywhere on that bike, and even though it loses speed pretty quickly on hills, I didn't care a bit because it was so much fun. As an aside, those big tires make so much noise that it sounds like a jet taking off...I love the sound of them! If you haven't ridden one, I highly recommend it!

Spring also marked the crash and burn of one of my very closest friendships (also a roommate) here in Flagstaff, and it's something that I'm still working through. I never thought at 38 years old that I would be having epic friendship fall outs, and thus found myself completely unprepared for the mental and emotional struggles that it presented. Being a relatively open, fair, compromising person, I was also unprepared for the struggles of living with a person who is not. At one point towards the end of things I attempted to have a meaningful conversation with this friend, and rather than being reciprocal in my approach, she proceeded to unload 18 months worth of harbored resentments on me in one fell swoop, the majority of which I was hearing for the very first time, reducing us to a screaming disaster that went on for hours. Those of you who know me best and have had the misfortune of seeing me at my worst know that even at my very worst, I'm not a screamer. That just isn't the way I resolve conflicts, but it's the way this person resolves her conflicts. I was ashamed and angry and incredibly frustrated that she was able to bring me down to her level, and for a long time I blamed myself entirely for that. I tried very hard to resolve things, to change my behavior so as not to upset her, but eventually I realized that I was giving 110% and getting nothing in return but more negativity. My friendship with her was also negatively affecting my relationships with those around me. I was surly, I was depressed, I was withdrawn, and I felt like I was walking on egg shells all the time. I escalated immediately to the smallest of infractions, and held onto that anger for far longer than was necessary. I would lay in bed with the covers over my head waiting for her to leave the house, wondering all the while what I had done to deserve to be treated so poorly. I knew that the friendship had to go when Simon approached me and told me that my efforts to salvage the friendship were negatively affecting our marriage. I had been putting so much mental and emotional energy into saving the friendship that I had nothing left for anyone else. So I let it go. I wish it were actually that simple, but in a nutshell, and with a little help, that's what I did.

Which brings me to another new facet of 2018. I went to counseling for the first time. In the process of letting go of the toxic friendship, I had a lot of unresolved anger, frustration, guilt, and anxiety. Anger over the way I was treated, frustration at my response to it, guilt over giving up on the friendship, and anxiety about seeing this person out and about and not knowing what my reaction to her might be. Truth be told, I was afraid that my anger and frustration would cause me to unpredictably say or do something that I might regret, and that's the last thing that I wanted. At my first session, I explained why I was there and what I hoped to gain from seeking therapy. Let's be honest, it was a lot of "she did this" and "she said that" and a complete recapping of everything about her and our interactions that had made me so upset and angry. What surprised me the most is that the therapist didn't comment much on my retelling of my woes about my failed friendship, but instead shifted the focus of my energy into looking inward at myself and at what makes me a good person deserving of love, affection, and friendship; in turn she helped me to recognize the qualities of individuals who are deserving of those things from me, and to distinguish them from those who are not. She also gave me some tools for bringing myself back down during an escalation, and helped me to divert some of that negative energy and anger into something more positive. Overall, it was really good, and actually the techniques used and the changes that were made were very simple. It just goes to show that you don't know what you don't know, and that admitting you need help is the first step in helping yourself out.

Here's a little tidbit that I struggled with in regards to therapy. I lost a friendship and was having a hard time dealing with it. There was a little voice in the back of my head saying, "You're 38 years old and a friendship went belly up. Poor you. As if that's a legitimate problem compared to other problems in the world." I almost talked myself out of therapy over those thoughts. But here's the thing...it's my life, and I want to live my best life, and not knowing how to deal with my anger was having a very real and very negative affect on my attempt at living my best life. So yes, while falling out of a friendship isn't the same as being abused, or having a mental illness, or an addiction, my happiness and my well-being were very much affected by my emotional state. Our reality is our reality, and it's up to us to seek out the tools to make our lives as good as they can possibly be. If that means seeking out therapy for issues both big and small, that's what it means. I would also like to Northern Arizona Healthcare for providing therapy sessions through our Employee Assistance Program. Had I been responsible for paying for the therapy sessions myself, I probably would have put off going longer than I had, or I wouldn't have gone at all.

You know the best part about all of this? The blossoming of all the friendships that have come about with the demise of the toxic one. I hadn't realized how much of myself I had been withholding from other people until that one person who had been consuming all my energy was suddenly gone from my life. It was a total 'can't the see the forest for the trees' kind of realization, and it felt so incredibly good to not only have seemingly endless amounts of energy to give to people, but to be open to receive it in return.   

So I've been mentioning energy a lot, and I think that stems from another new facet of 2018 for me. I started going to yoga. I'd been dabbling in yoga for years and just never really liked it. There was always an excuse for that...I didn't like the instructor, I didn't like the space, I was physically incapable of getting into some of the poses, it didn't feel like a workout the way going to the gym did, the meditation portion seemed stupid and there were so many other things I could have been doing while I was just lying there on the floor breathing. Some of you are nodding along with me because I know you've had the same experience with yoga. I think what turned things around for me was finding a studio that I liked, and most importantly, finding an instructor that I liked. As with anything challenging, having the right support makes all the difference. I go to Yoga Revolution here in Flagstaff. Not going to lie, prior to their studio opening, they ran a strong Instagram campaign. I couldn't log in without seeing one of their promotional ads, featuring either a distinguished looking tattooed bearded man in Buddy Holly glasses (Dave), or a tall skinny blonde woman with pink streaks in her hair wearing cowboy boots and a blissful smile on her face (Staci). I was intrigued. So I went. First off, the space really speaks to me on a personal level. They keep the lights low, they have candles burning at the front of the room, and best of all, it's heated (but not too hot) by these wonderful heaters in the ceiling that give off a warm, comforting glow. I think for me, I needed to separate myself from the idea that yoga is a workout in the traditional sense, and this dark, warm, comfy space allows me to do that. Yoga definitely is a workout, but it's so much more than that. At the beginning, I really struggled both mentally and physically, which was to be expected. My flexibility was almost non-existent, and my attention span waxed and waned, and yes, for those first few sessions, I was definitely making a grocery list in my head during the mediation portion at the end of class, but I kept going, and I kept telling myself (with inspiration from Staci), that I had no where else to be, that this hour of yoga was just for me, and that most of all, I deserved this time for myself. Believe it or not, it worked. I'd be sitting there on my mat at the beginning of class, bombarded by thoughts of what else I could be doing, what I needed to be doing, grocery lists, errands to run, bills to pay, places to go, worries about everything from family to friends to finances, anxieties about personal interactions, misgivings about going to work that evening; after a while I was able to push all that away and just focus on the fact that I had an hour to myself to stretch and breathe and move and share a space with people who were doing the exact same thing. In a word, two words really, it was life changing. I am so thankful to Yoga Revolution and their fantastic line-up of instructors who inspire me, who gently guide me along, who encourage me, and who give me the time and the space to do something good for myself. I don't know that I'll ever be able to do a handstand or the splits (maybe something to add to Betterments 2019?), but I'm okay with that, and most of all, I'm not disappointed by that. In the words of Staci, 'You do you,' and everything else is extra.

Simon and I took so many trips in 2018 that there are almost too many to list, but I'll do it anyway. Key West, Hawaii, New Orleans, Death Valley National Park, Oklahoma City, Telluride (twice), Minnesota (three times), Rocky Mountain National Park, Grand Canyon North Rim (twice), Grand Canyon South Rim (twice), Minnesota State Fair, and Joshua Tree National Park. I ran a bunch of races again this year, including: Key West Half Marathon, New Orleans Best Damn Race half marathon, Brian Michelson 10k, Rocky Mountain National Park half marathon and 5k, Imogene Pass Run, and Joshua Tree National Park half marathon. Simon and I also did our longest backpacking hike to date: 39 miles over three days on the Arizona Trail just east of Phoenix. We got to see so many of our friends and family who live near and far, and we've had several people come visit us in our new home. I got to see my friends Tara and Heather graduate from nursing school; we saw some of our favorite bands at the Orpheum here in town, including Cold War Kids and Trampled by Turtles; I learned how to make candles and how to crochet, two things I am not good at but had fun trying; I spent a lot of time at the ski hill trying to get better and mostly succeeding; I did some mountain biking and have mostly determined that it's probably not the sport for me; I attended two wine and paint nights and while my painting skills are nothing to write home about, it was a lot of fun; we went snow biking for the first time on New Year's Eve, which was an absolute blast.

The @alicepicklebottoms account on Instagram continues to flourish. I think it's funny that an entire account devoted to people taking pictures with their pants down continues to draw interest, but I'm thankful for it as well as that account has given me plenty of giggles along the way. I'm impressed by the number of people who willingly play along and send me their mooning pictures from all over the world. United by butts. Who knew??

 All in all, 2018 was a pretty great year with lots of learning, fun trips, great friends, and it set us up nicely for so many things to look forward to in the coming year. Keep on the lookout for my 2019 Betterments post, coming soon!

   

The Rescue Blues

It's the wee hours of the morning, and I can't sleep.

It's 1am and I have a sweet little cattle dog sitting next to me, nudging my forearm every now and again for pets.  Her name is Alice, renamed from her original name of Buckie, that she was given by the humane society here in Flagstaff. I felt like Buckie sounded too much like a boy name, and that she deserved something a little more dignified and befitting to her ladylike demeanor. I also think that human names for animals are hilarious, and given that Alice would most likely have been my first choice had I had a little human girl of my own, I figured giving the name to a dog was fitting.

There wasn't much backstory for Alice. She was a stray that was brought in to the humane society. She has a docked tail and wasn't spayed, and could quite possibly have been a breeder, as I'm pretty sure she's a pure-bred Blue Heeler. A Texas Spotted, according to the gal at the boarding kennel we had her housed at for a few days while we were out of town. She knows how to sit, and does it readily and happily, particularly if she thinks you might be harboring a treat somewhere on your person. And even if you don't, she will still run right up to you and sit anyway. She seems incredibly intelligent and very eager to please. I'm pretty sure my roommate was almost 90% successful in training her to rollover in just a few attempts. I set up a crate and she immediately went into it and laid down. This dog had to have belonged to someone at some point; how she ended up at the humane society, I guess we'll never know. She has a funny little chuffing cough and doesn't seem to be able to bark, despite all appearances that she's trying. She's absolutely beautiful, with a speckled grey coat and a smattering of white across her nose. She has one solid little black spot on her short little nub of a tail, which always seems to be wagging and wiggling. She's definitely got that intense heeler personality, and made her rounds last evening when the three of us in the house happened to be in separate rooms. She's quick moving, but also readily relaxes once she's ascertained that everything is as it should be. She's a little jumpy, which I think is to be expected given her breed and her recent situation at the shelter, and isn't a huge fan of having her paws touched. Upon entering the house, she went to every window and popped up to look out to see what there was to see. She does the heeler lean, slumping into your legs while being petted, staring adoringly into your eyes, begging you to never stop.

She really didn't pay too much attention to Cooper, nor he to her. She met my neighbor and coworker Steff, who happened to be out on a walk with her little boy and was totally rocking a new pixie cut. She went right up to the little guy, game him a sniff, and reveled in his affections. Alice seems to really like Simon quite a bit, following him from place to place like a little shadow. Ironic, really, given that he doesn't like dogs all that much but tolerates me having them because he knows they make me happy. 

Last night Alice attacked Cooper. I had just given her her nightly antibiotic pill. Looking back, it was incredibly stupid on my part to have given her that in front of him, as he immediately followed her to investigate what tasty nibble she had gotten. She gave all the warning signs for him to back off...bared her teeth, growled low in her throat, and held her head low over the remains of the peanut butter treat I had hidden the pill in. Cooper is deaf and mostly blind, and whether he picked up on her signs or not, she didn't give him time to deliberate and was on him in a second. I was maybe three feet away at the time, seeing what was coming but powerless to stop it. It happened so incredibly fast, and it took three of us to pull her off of him. There was a moment there where I thought that not only was she going to bite my roommate, who fearlessly and immediately jumped right into the middle of it, but that she was going to kill my little dog right there in front of me.

Earlier this spring I saw my neighbor's pug mauled nearly to death by a roving neighborhood dog. I was, and still am, incredibly traumatized by bearing witness to that. Luckily the little pug survived, but just barely. Over the years I've caught plenty of nature shows, and have seen just how brutal animals can be to each other, but it was always through a screen; there was always a degree of separation that didn't prepare me for seeing something brutally mauled right in front of my face. Everything I felt that day came rushing back to me in an instant as I cuddled Cooper on the couch afterwards, looking him over from head to toe to make sure that he was okay. Given how brutal the attack appeared to me, Cooper seemed rather nonplussed, and was his usual resistant self when all I wanted was for him to sit on my lap and give me comfort. Funny that, he's the one who gets attacked and I'm the one needing to be comforted. I felt so terrible about the whole thing that I was physically nauseated and couldn't bear to eat, despite the fact that my roommate had made some pretty amazing macaroni and cheese in the Instant Pot. If you know me at all, you know I don't miss a meal for anything, and I never skip the opportunity to eat mac and cheese.

I know that there are dog psychologists and trainers, and that she probably just needs more time, and that there's so much to learn about resource guarding and adding another member to the pack, but I just can't stand the thought that she might someday really hurt or even kill my little buddy, or that she might hurt one of us as we try to keep her from hurting him. The fact that she attacked him makes me wonder how she'll be with other dogs. They told me at the shelter that she was good with other dogs, but how could they really know? Having worked in a shelter in the past, I know that the shelter environment is no place to gauge an animal's personality. I should have spent more time with her before comitting to the adoption. I should have slept on it. I should have listened to Simon's hesitations.

There's a big part of me that feels like I'm not trying hard enough, that this is just another example of me rushing into a decision without the proper forethought and planning, which has become such a predictable and classic character flaw for me. I feel like such a failure. It wasn't fair of me to have trusted her so implicitly so soon. This is all relatively new for her...we're new, Cooper is new, the house is new...she's experiencing everything with us for the first time, just as we are with her. I don't know what to do, I feel like I'm in way over my head, and I feel like the longer I wait, the more opportunity and inevitability there is for her to hurt Cooper. I have little doubt in my mind that she will attack him again, most likely over something food related. The thought of feeding them in the morning is now terrifying. I certainly can't trust them alone, and after the attack I won't let Cooper out of my sight for even a second. I've come to the conclusion that I just can't keep her. I don't know how I would live with myself knowing that I brought this other dog into the house who hurt my loyal little companion of 14 years. He doesn't deserve that, he didn't ask for it, and I think given the choice, he'd be perfectly content to remain an only dog for whatever time he has left here with us. 

So I'm sitting up tonight with this beautiful little girl while she sleeps all curled up in a pet bed next to me, softly snoring and sighing. I feel like I owe her that much and probably more, knowing that this coming morning will be our last day together, that I will be returning her to the shelter from which she came, in the hopes that maybe she'll be a fantastic dog for a different family. Maybe if I didn't have Cooper, things would be different. But I do have him, and I will continue to have him, and it's not right or fair for me to compromise his safety on a whim. I really wanted this to work out so badly, I was so excited to have an adventure dog, but I guess maybe this just isn't the right time, and maybe she's just not the right dog. But this is Flagstaff, everyone goes nuts over their heelers in this town, and I know she'll be a great addition to someone else's pack. I wish she could have been for ours.