Feelin Hot, Hot, Hot

Worst Decision Ever:

Best Decision Ever:

The Side Effects:

Wine Country Half Marathon

This thing was hard. So hard that I had to walk a little bit the last couple of miles! This is unheard of. I might run really slowly, but I don't walk. I could blame it on all the hills, or the fact that the temperature was in about the mid 70's by the time I finished (that's warm for running), but I'll just be honest and say that I ran the first half of the race too fast and probably didn't train as much as I should have. My unofficial time is 2:06. My last race was 6 minutes faster :( Oh well...It was a beautiful course and the finisher's medal is the coolest one I've ever gotten so I don't regret doing it. Here are the pictures:

Another $10 Anthropologie Bag!

I did it again!! I've been eyeing this bag for the past couple of weeks because it was reduced from $68 to $20. But I just couldn't bite the bullet...until yesterday! I was doing my daily Anthropolgie sale section browse and noticed it was only $10. Finding cheap things should be my full time job. Anyone hiring?

Update on the Space Car

Jake took the car to be looked at yesterday because the service light came on. Turns out that we need a new ac filter, but while he was there he asked about the trunk situation. Apparently there's a little switch in the glove box that can be turned on when you're going to have a valet attendant park your car. You flip the switch and then they use this little key (that we don't actually have) to open the doors and start the car, but they don't have access to the trunk. So basically you can store valuables or dead bodies in the trunk and the valet won't be able to steal anything from you or report you to the authorities for having dead bodies.

How convenient, right??

Silly space car!

Take Your Wife to Work Day (again)

Did you know that you can play with fire hydrants and not get in trouble?! Well I'm sure you need a good excuse to do it so I won't recommend that you try this for fun. Jake needed to do a flow test the other day in Ukiah and I went with him to assist. It actually does involve 2 people because you have to do something at 2 different hydrants at the same time so don't think that I was just standing around taking pictures. Okay, well I pretty much was, but I managed to complete my task as well. Most of the time I was just freaked out that someone was going to call 911 to report us.


I didn't get a picture of the water gushing out of the hydrant, but it was quite impressive and managed to clean a good part of the street.


After the test we headed over to the actual building Jake will be working on. It's some type of medical facility.

Here I am in the spot where the elevator will go:

Here is Jake explaining technical stuff to me. He was pointing out that the pipe is called Tyler Pipe because it's made in Tyler, Texas. He learned in school that the place they manufacture it is called the "death factory" because it's so dangerous!

This last picture is of a room called "the lactation station." For real!! It's on the plans! I guess it's where mothers will nurse or something. I find this hilarious. I must be a 12 year old boy.

Oktoberfest and Open Mic Night

Lakeport hosted an Oktoberfest celebration this past weekend that was a lot of fun. They had live bands, a costume contest and races for dockson puppies. There was also a lot of beer and food too, as to be expected for an Oktoberfest.

I loved the beer and pretzel balloons.

It's always fun to watch drunk people dance around in front of a large crowd.

Later that night we went to Kelsey Creek Coffee in Lakeport to watch the open mic night.

This was our favorite act. This guy was amazing! His violinist side kick was good too.

We thought he was going to belt out some country tunes based on his attire, but surprisingly he played a lot of songs we know and love and some that I think were originals, but were also really good. In between 2 of his songs he began tuning his guitar and Jake turned to me and said "it sounds like he's tuning for a Goo Goo Dolls song." I thought he was crazy because it just sounded like random notes to me, but what do you know...he started playing a Goo Goo Dolls song! I was amazed.

Surviving Sponsorship Run & Our Space Car

Yesterday we participated in a 10K that benefits cancer survivors in Lake County. The money helps patients in the area pay for their medical expenses. It didn't start until 9:00 so it was a bit warm for a 6 mile run, but it was still fun.

It was a one of the friendliest races I've ever been to. While we were waiting for the race to start a woman came up to me and introduced herself. She said she sees me running every day on her way to work and she always waves to me. Then after the race a bunch of the 10k participants said hi and chatted a little bit. There was a good turnout for the race, but only a small handful were 10k-ers so we had a special bond (they also had a 2k and a 5k).

Here is a picture from after the race. No, the sun isn't in Jake's eyes. He just likes to look goofy.


Speaking of goofy...

When we were getting ready to leave for the race Jake said "will you push the button (of the car remote) to open the trunk?" His running shoes happened to be in there, but I'd forgotten to mention that when I went to the store the other day and tried to put the groceries in there, I couldn't get it to open. "What do you mean it won't open?" "I mean that it. won't. open." So he tried a couple things and couldn't get it to work. He then had to go inside and get another pair of shoes. She same pair that he ran his first 10k in that ruined his foot. He wasn't to excited about running in them again. We got to the race, checked in, and then he went back to the car to try the trunk again. He returned with the shoes that were locked in there. "Did you get it open?" "No, not exactly. I had to remove the back seat." I thought he meant that he just had to fold the seats down, but no, our car doesn't have that feature. Instead, the actual seat pops off and then you have access to the trunk. I've never heard of this before. Why don't the seats just fold down? Apparently that feature is only available in the "cold weather" models (for skis and snowboards). Here's a picture of him putting it back in:


I guess the latch is broken or something, but the whole incident reminded me of the movie, Baby Momma, when she's trying to get out of the car, but it's locked and she's having trouble. I'm bad at describing this and don't remember exactly what happens, but at some point she refers to the car as a "space car" and that's what I felt like we had. A space car that we couldn't get into.

(Semi) Vegan Update

I'm happy to report that our new diet has been progressing nicely. We've still had meat on a few occasions (eating out) but I haven't purchased meat or dairy products at the store in over a month. I take that back...I'm sure I've purchased some things that have traces of dairy or eggs, but nothing extreme. Even when we eat out I try to order non meat and dairy meals. It surprisingly hasn't been very difficult and I haven't really been craving meat. I have two complaints about the new diet though:

1. I spend so much more time in the kitchen! Cutting up vegetables takes a lot of time. Maybe I'm just challenged when it comes to chopping because I don't think it takes most people this much time. I should probably invest in a food processor or at least one of those little hand chopper things.

2. It's so expensive. When I first started this thing I was excited because I was spending significantly less at the store. Then I realized it was only less because Jake was out of town for a long time so I was shopping for only 1 person. Duh. I'm an idiot. Now I'm spending about $50 MORE than I was when we were eating animal products. Not only are vegetables time consuming, but they also cost a lot.

These downfalls are worth the trouble though. My stomach feels much better than it did before. This leads me to believe that perhaps I'm slightly lactose intolerant or something. I definitely notice a difference even when I have one meal that contains dairy or meat. Is their such a thing as meat intolerant too? I doubt it, but I really do feel a lot better.

I purchased the following cookbook from Amazon a few weeks ago and I've really enjoyed making a lot of recipes in it. Not all have turned out great, but most have been pretty good.

I just purchased the following two and and I'm really anxious for them to get here.

(hopefully this one will help solve problem #2)

(I think this is THE book for vegans so I'm really excited, but slightly intimidated by it)

I love buying books on Amazon. They're so cheap! The only downside is that you have to wait so long for them to arrive and you have to pay a shipping fee. But really, the shipping is less than what I would spend to drive to a bookstore in Santa Rosa so I feel like I'm getting a good deal.

My biggest piece of advice related to veganism: Meat and dairy substitutes DO NOT taste anything like the real thing. Don't even bother with them. Except for soy pudding. That stuff is goooood, but it's not available at my local grocery store so I'll have to save it for special occasions.

I keep trying to stress that this is very "semi" vegan or vegan "light" because I don't want people to think we won't eat with them because of our weird diet. The point of this is to reduce the animal products we consume, not to completely eliminate them. So to mom #1 and #2: Yes, we still eat all the cookies you make even if they're made with non vegan ingredients ;)

And in case you're curious. No, we're not losing any weight on this diet. Tortilla chips are vegan. We eat a lot of them. I blame it on our salsa addiction.

Hobergs Resort

Jake's grandparents and the generations before them ran a resort on Cobb Mountain back in the day. The resort was purchased by a religious group, but was then sold to somone else and it is opening up again next summer. Check out their website: hobergsclub.com/index.html. It looks like they've done a fabulous job!

If you want to learn more about the history of Hobergs Resort or other resorts in Lake County then you should buy the book that Jake's grandma wrote!

Amazon

The Mexican Rodeo

Last weekend we went to the rodeo to help work the beer booth. Jake's uncle is a coach for the Kelseyville wrestling team and they organized the booth in order to raise money. Obviously the wrestlers are too young to sell beer so Jake and I went to help out. It was the craziest thing ever. Take any experience you've had at a regular rodeo and multiply that by a million.

They basically have no rules. Well I'm sure they have some rules, but they don't follow the 8 second rule. They just try to stay on as long as possible and some of them don't even use their hands to hold on! They also have this huge band playing during the entire thing. I've never heard anything so loud my entire life! And they get so dressed up. Everyone in attendance is dressed to the nines in their fanciest rodeo attire. I highly advise everyone to attend one of these if they ever get the chance. It was amazing.




While we were working the booth a guy that works for Jake came up to make a purchase. Jake yelled his name and the guy got all excited. "That's my boss!" he tells his friends. "Oh my gato!!" Oh my cat? I don't know. They have an odd relationship. Too many hours in the car together.