A Week of “Vacation”

Posted on February 26, 2021 by Thistle

Y’all. The house projects were stacking up. The kitchen and dining room were stuffed full of saws, tools, air compressors, random nails and screws, and more. (Pic below is after most of it was cleaned up!!) The living room had several stacks of wood in it. The back porch was so full of construction materials that it couldn’t be used as a porch. The front and back yards were both full of stacks of retaining wall blocks and sheets of cement siding panels. The outer walls of both dining/kitchen and master bedroom were ripped apart. There were new trees that needed to be planted before they died in their temporary pots.

In other words, the list of projects-in-progress had grown untenable, and the house had been taken over by construction supplies and partially accessible rooms. The chaos kept building until, in early February, I said enough was enough.

(I don’t handle chaos very well.)

Because of the pandemic and several canceled vacations over the last two years, Jason had an excess of vacation days built up. After some discussion, he asked for this last week of February off, with the intention of finishing as many of the projects as possible. Usually, we only have weekends to work on these things, and many of the projects had been in progress for months – and some for nearly a year! So we made a list and set up priorities for this week of “vacation.” Of course, we didn’t expect an insane snow-week to come the week before this “vacation,” causing some further construction-related issues. Sigh. So anyway, here’s what we managed to complete.

In my room, the wall was torn up from the window-replacement done in 2020 (top photo is from actual window replacement on 12/31). Most of the following work had been done over weekends in 2021, but was finished this week. Wainscoting went up over the damaged wall and the interior shelves between the two new windows was built. Eventually it was all painted a very pale blue. (Difficult to see via photo with the old walls still that ugly brown they were when we moved in.) I also got new curtains that weren’t blackout-style. Eventually, the rest of the walls will be repainted, but that’s luxury instead of necessity, so my room is done for now. (Not pictured: a couple more shelves added to that between-the-windows area.)

In the dining/kitchen, we used slat-board and tile to frame out the new windows and repair the walls. (Bonus: It covered up the really horrible yellow. It doesn’t show in photos, but the yellow paint was a single layer over some kind of dark color with no primer, and looked sickly and patchy in real life.) I’m highly sensitive to polyurethane, so we couldn’t poly the walls, and we were worried that I’d have the same reaction to highly chemical varnishes. Then Jason found this absolutely wonderful website about non-chemical finishes, and we used the info to shellac and wax up our wall to make it beautiful without paint! In the above photos, please ignore whatever mess was around – other parts of the house were still under construction, and the “after” photos were taken while still dealing with the boil-water notice – and the open light switch, which we can’t finish until after the outside work is done. Plus, the “before” photos are what I could cobble together from the last year living here! Eventually, we will do far more to this room (replace cabinets, counters, and florescent lights; paint the other walls, new light fixtures, etc), but once again, that’s luxury.

Outside, I finally built the wall around our tree and vinca as the next step of xeriscaping the front yard. I can’t do much more right now for lack of finances, but I’m glad to get that done. In the backyard, we’d previously bought two new trees to plant, a live oak and a nectarine. Thankfully, we hadn’t planted them before the Snowpocalypse came through! They stayed safe inside the house! This week, we planted them. The nectarine took longer than expected because we had to build up a retaining wall to give one of the trees more than a couple inches of topsoil! So much erosion in this neighborhood! Note: I was supposed to plant my giant aloe vera as well, but the spot we chose for a potential succulent garden 1) didn’t end up being a good spot, and 2) led us to discover one of two problems caused by the Snowpocalypse. More on this in a bit.

One of the other big projects we planned to do this week was finish the siding along the back wall, and potentially finish the porch railings and such. There was siding on about 2/3rds of the back wall, and house wrap on the rest. Jason got the rest of the siding up and caulked everything together. We began the painting as well. But then other more-urgent projects arose due to the Snowpocalypse, plus it began to rain. The rest of the painting, trimming, soffits, porch stuff, etc all became a much lower priority (at least that’s all outside!) while we worked with other things. Photos: The before photo is the realty photo taken before we bought the house, and includes the old (rotten, falling-down) porch as well as the moldy siding. The in-progress photo is current as of yesterday morning, though we hope to make more progress by the time J goes back to work next week. Assuming it ever stops raining. (As you can see, our yard is still FULL of construction supplies!)

Which leads us to the two WTF Snowpocalypse projects of the week. The first is hard to see in that photo to the left. When I went to find an exact spot to start my succulent garden, this entire area was water logged, and an external drain was pouring water as if a tap was turned on. Turns out, it was the water heater release drain – meant to drop only condensation from the a/c and heating unit, or to drain water from the water heater if it got too hot or was under too much pressure. None of those situations were applicable (the a/c and heating unit hadn’t even been on for days!). We spoke with the plumber who installed the water heater – who, btw, was swamped due to all the broken pipes from the sub-freezing temps – and he concluded that due to the low water pressure issue, it’s likely the pressure valve had gone bad. We picked up a new valve, and Jason installed it. Issue fixed. Just took time away from other things!

Then there was my bathroom vanity. That thing was old, cheap, and not particularly well-cared for by previous occupants. Over our winter-week, we had the sinks either filled to capacity (for washing use once we lost our water) or continually running (to prevent burst pipes). One of the two sinks sprung a leak through the porcelain itself. I mean WTF?? After multiple attempts to fix it with epoxy and more, plus attempts to improve the other sink (it was the worser of the two and generally didn’t get used), we realized we were just going to need to replace the whole thing. This was a project we were planning in the “eventually, once we have a lot more money” category. (The whole bathroom needs gutting and redoing.) So it was IKEA to the rescue! The final setup is definitely an in-progress photo because the walls and floors both need to be repaired/replaced, and I’d like to eventually get rid of the horrid lighting and mirror situation with a better solution. But like everything else, that’s luxury. For now, this will be fine, and at least I really like the setup!

So how’s that for “vacation?” Ha! And to think, we still have all these things as current in-progress projects that need to be finished before we can STOP doing house construction for a bit, aka things we’d planned to be done with during this “vacation:”

  • finish painting and trimming the siding, plus soffits, along the back wall
  • wiring the two porch lights (and indoor switch that goes with them)
  • more dirt/compost/mulch to both the nectarine area and vinca area
  • porch railings attached to the new siding, and railings finished (need interior rails)
  • porch stairs need a stable ground under the last step re: erosion
  • planting the aloe vera
  • replacing the baseboard in my bathroom
  • attaching one of the two bathroom cabinets pictured above to the wall (need to buy supplies to anchor it)
  • general construction supply cleanup, including many, many trips to the recycling center/dump

Some of that, we still plan to do today and over the weekend, depending on the rain situation. Hopefully, we’ll both get in a movie and/or a couple’s massage or something relaxing over the weekend as well, as a reward for all this insane work. We’re both sore and exhausted. Hauling 40+ concrete blocks, 22 lbs each – not to mention bags and bags of dirt, manure, peat moss, and mulch – across the property is no fun. Nor is tons of digging in ground that doesn’t exactly like to be dug out, or assembling furniture, or painting… And I didn’t even do any of the holding-up-concrete-siding-panels etc. Oy. But it does feel good to make progress, even if some of that progress was impeded by new emergency projects. One of these days, we’ll finish all this crap and take a nice, long break before we do anything more!!

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Wellness Wednesday – Hikes of 2021, #9-16

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Thistle

Overall, I’ve hiked a lot less in February than I did in January, due to some foot/hip injuries. This post includes the last few from January and all those up til now in Feb, which will likely be all but one more this upcoming weekend (unless predicted rain becomes bothersome!). It becomes quite obvious through this post that there are certain parks I tend to frequent more often than others! There are also a few that I used to go to often, but haven’t been to in ages…need to diversify my hikes a little more going forward!

Continue reading →

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Sunday Coffee – Winter Wonderland, or Snowpocalypse

Posted on February 21, 2021 by Thistle

I’ve lived in San Antonio for over half of my life. I’ve experienced snow here several times, and ice storm or two, and some hard-freezes where temps got into the low-20s. But I’ve never experienced anything (here) like what San Antonio went through this week. The event ranged from the amazing to the horrific.

(ice/snow storms in 2007, 2011, 2017)

As last weekend approached, we watched the weather forecast with amazement. Temps as low as 4 degrees were predicted. I looked it up, and it turns out that San Antonio has only dipped into single digits five times since 1899 before this week. So we were in for some insanity! The cold weather began to roll in on Friday, and the snow/ice was predicted to start Sunday morning. Hikes got canceled for safety’s sake, and my family ran to the grocery store early on Saturday to stock up on some basic supplies for the week (milk, eggs, etc). The temps went below freezing on Saturday evening and didn’t get above freezing again until Wednesday.

(snow, Monday morning)

The snow/ice didn’t start on Sunday morning as expected, but instead came in around 10:30pm. It started with some graupel fall, then switched to full on snow over the next six hours. Altogether, we got about 4-5 inches at our house. (San Antonio once had a heavy snow – 13 inches – in 1985, but otherwise has never gotten above about 2-3 inches before this week. The most I’ve personally seen was ~1 inch or less.) The power went out briefly in the middle of the night. We’d already anticipated this, and had set out extra blankets (for humans and cats), covered all the plants and pipes, had the water running throughout the house, cabinet doors open, etc. We’ve lived up north enough to know 1) how to deal with this kind of weather, and 2) how different San Antonio is structured from northern areas used to these kinds of temps. For example, the pipes run through concrete slab foundations, so are really susceptible to freezing/bursting!

(the cats wanted out, but then they weren’t impressed, ha!)

Thankfully, we had no major energy or water issues on Monday, when the temps were as low as 7 degrees and as high as 28 degrees. Many of my friends were without electricity, and quite a few lost water. We were informed that there would be rotating power outages because TX is stupid and they privatized and deregulated their energy grid, so it was mismanaged and power was being spread throughout the state. (Really, why wouldn’t you winterize your power stations?? WTF??) My sisters, who live up in the Dallas area, experienced different levels of power outage. My mom has been off and on all week, and my dad’s house was out for all of Monday (then off and on afterwards). Jason and I ventured out at mid-day (when the roads were slushy) because we couldn’t resist a snowy hike at the trails just four miles away. Some of the stoplights were completely out. !!! We were SUPER careful driving, and also out on the trails.

(winter hike in SA!)

Monday was our best day, despite it also being the coldest day. Other than our short power outage overnight, we had power and water all of Monday. Over the next night, the temps got back down to around 10 degrees, re-freezing all the semi-melted slush into ice sheets on the roads. The city closed all highways. Tuesday morning, our power went out…for the next six hours. About four hours into that time, the water pressure suddenly got very, very low. We quickly filled up tubs, sinks, pitchers, and large pots with both drinking water and water that could be used for toilets. We prepped food so that we could start cooking the second our power came on. When we’d grabbed food supplies at the store, we didn’t expect massive rolling blackouts, so we hadn’t grabbed the right supplies! Long story short, the power came back on around 5pm, and we ran to cook breakfast tacos, cornbread muffins, cookies, hot chocolate, and coffee, plus charge all our electronics and batteries. We had a couple hours of power before it dropped off again.

(ice and thaw – we have no idea if any of our plants will survive!)

After that, we seemed to go on a three-hours-on, five-hours-off power schedule. During our time in the dark, I caught up on my favorite podcast, read more of my photography instruction books, and attempted some really simple macrame (it didn’t come out so well, haha!). During our power-on times, we cooked, warmed the house, and charged electronics. Because we have plenty of heavy-duty clothes/blankets from our time up north, we managed pretty well. Unfortunately, Tuesday overnight brought a secondary ice storm, and by noon on Wednesday, we lost water completely. (The water system said the pumps were being put out by the power outages, and couldn’t get enough water pressure to reach the houses. Thankfully, our pipes didn’t freeze!) Wednesday did see above-freezing temps, thawing some of the ice and snow, plus allowing Jason to run to the grocery store again for a few scant supplies (not much was available!). Why a grocery run this late in the game? Because a third storm front was set to come through on Thursday with another load of sleet, freezing rain, and snow.

(more power outages, more snow)

The good news: First, the power situation improved Wednesday and we began to have power more often than not. It was back completely by Thursday. (Other than taking showers and running the dishwasher, we continued to conserve heavily!) Second, the water – which was down to a dripping in the bathroom sink and gone completely in the kitchen – returned to normal pressure overnight into Thursday. (Hence showers and dishwasher!) (Unfortunately, the return of water came with a boil water notice for the foreseeable future.) Third, the last storm that was set to come through grew milder in the forecast (from sleet/ice and snow to just snow, and from 4+ inches to maybe 1 inch). In the end, there was definitely closer to 3-4 inches of snow, but it was all snow, no more ice. Whew! It was the prettiest kind of snow, too, fat lazy flakes that lasted for hours! Once again, I couldn’t help myself, and I went out on another snow hike, ha!

(snowy hike 2!)

Overnight Thursday into Friday was another hard freeze (about 17 degrees, which was much lower than expected!), but it got above freezing in the afternoon. The snow started to melt except in places of deep shadow. I took the sodden, heavy sheets off our plants. The tall dianthus were mostly snapped in half, so they’re going to take some pampering and might not survive. I guess we’ll see what happens. Especially since Friday into Saturday saw another hard freeze (this time only down to about 25 degrees at least!). I have to admit, by Friday afternoon, I was going stir-crazy. I’m used to being in my house all the time, but able to leave to take walks and such. Sure, I took those hikes, but I wanted to really go out. Didn’t matter if it was to the nursery for flower pots, or the craft store for macrame supplies, or the gym to renew a membership I haven’t used in ages anyway. I just wanted OUT. I was happy when my hiking leadership group decided to get together for a walk Saturday afternoon when it was in the 50s and the snow was mostly melted away completely.

(patchy thaw)

Across San Antonio, things were crazy all week. Highways closed. Streetlights out. Power and water outages. Giant warmth shelters set up to hold hundreds of people despite the covid threat. City services (mail, recycling/organics pickup, new briefs, covid data, etc) were all canceled. Covid testing sites were closed and vaccines delayed. Schools closed or went async, and there are possible closures next week as well as school deal with burst pipes. The water system put in place a policy where customers will pay whichever is lower of this month’s and last month’s bills, because of burst pipes. Electricity bills aren’t so kind across much of Texas – we don’t know what ours will look like yet. Sigh.

(post-Snowpocalypse hike)

We aren’t out of the woods yet. We still have to boil all our water for drinking, giving to the cats, and cooking. For the dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher, we’ve had to add a bit of bleach to the wash water. One of our sinks got overwhelmed holding full of water and began to leak out of the drain, so we have to fix that now (nothing to do with the cold, it was just old). Gas stations are out of gas and the oil refineries are apparently offline, so we may not be able to fill our cars up for another week. Major fires have broken out in areas where there is no water pressure, causing widespread damage (far more than normal) because firefighters couldn’t get them out in a timely manner. Etc. But it got into the 50s  yesterday, and is supposed to remain above freezing all week, so hopefully soon we can get to the work of fixing, rebuilding, and (of course) changing the energy grid system here in Texas!

Things I learned this week of the snowpocalypse:

  • Hiking in snow uses weird muscles that will be really sore the next day.
  • Cold brew is a lifesaver when you have no power. Also I’m glad I learned about 20 ways to make it this past year.
  • Have the kettle filled so that you can run and hit “heat” the second the power comes on. Have a coffee thermos that will keep it hot for you.
  • Cook when you have power. Better to have real food that’s room temperature than snacks for dinner.
  • Texas is stupid. A privatized, de-regulated energy grid for the entire state is stupid.
  • Eating healthy is no longer a priority when you only have power a few hours per day. Neither is exercise when you don’t have heat or running water.
  • Cell towers also go out when the electricity goes out, and we rely too much on the internet for things like emergency updates.
  • Breakfast tacos only take 5 mins to cook. Five-min meals are excellent when you don’t know how long the power will stay on.
  • Boiling all your water sucks. We don’t keep bottled water around but I do wish we’d stocked up before this started.
  • Boiled water also tastes awful. You wouldn’t think so, but it really does change the taste of the water.
  • HEB is the best store that ever existed.
  • Ted Cruz is an a$$hole. I mean, I didn’t really learn that – I already knew it – but he really proved it well this week!
  • WhatsApp is an awesome tool for keeping in contact when the cell towers go mostly down and you only have the tiniest bar of data, because it’s primarily text-based and no frills. My text support group on there was the very best.
  • Nothing makes you feel more human than being able to take a shower for the first time in three days. (Also, clean dishes and clothes.)
  • Snow days make for really awesome photos and great photography practice!!

As I said at the beginning of this post, I’ve never experienced anything like this in SA. Hell, I lived in Wisconsin for five years and I lived in Boston in The Year of Blizzards, and still have never experienced anything like what we went through this week. I’m just glad we’ve made it through safe and healthy and without any major damage.

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Quarantine Diaries – Weeks 48 and 49

Posted on February 19, 2021 by Thistle

It hardly feels worth posting this today as Week 49 was basically superseded by our Snowmageddon. The city stopped updating its numbers and holding daily briefings after last Friday. Plus, the week came down to “covid vs keeping people warm,” and of course immediate survival trumps potential spread every time. Big centers opened to house up to 500 folks who were without power and water. Vaccine and testing centers basically closed down for the week, and scheduled vaccines were moved forward a week or two. There’s no telling just how the pandemic will be affected by all this, but I don’t blame the city for doing all they could do. The power situation with the (de-regulated, privatized) statewide energy grid and the water outages that occurred because of that are just nuts. So anyway, I put together what info I could for Week 49, and I’m sure future weeks will show the rolling trends of numbers bump up and down in compensation for a bit.

Week 48 – February 5 to 11
186,346 cases, 2,387 deaths, 890 seven-day rolling average (major drop!), 9.7% positivity rate (down 1.7%). Hospitals have dropped to under 800 patients. Our local high school reported only 5 students positive for covid this week.

It’s been really good to see the numbers go down day after day. We’re far from out of the woods, but we’re getting there. Our “danger” meter for the city has been dropped down to “moderate” level, and the same for the school danger indicator. (Though, statewide, there have been 100k+ students and 60k+ staff to get covid since schools opened in September.) There’s no telling if the numbers will continue to go down, not with 1) Super Bowl home gatherings last weekend, 2) the upcoming Stock Show and Rodeo (sigh), 3) the UK variant now definitely in SA, and 4) the women’s NCAA tournament being held, entirely, in our city. I guess we’ll see. Fingers crossed.

Week 49 – February 12 to 18
Because of the Snowpocalypse this week, covid testing facilities have been closed and the city wasn’t updating info or doing news briefs for most of the week (as stated above). Even though there was an update at the end of the week, there was no case or statistical data updates for the week. Schools were also closed all week, not even bothering with virtual async classes after Monday, so my only school number (0 students, 1 staff) was as of last Friday.

Other news from the week: UHS (the health system through which I got my vaccine (which notably, I should have as full protection as possible now)) administered their 100,000th vaccine last Friday. Another pediatric covid death was reported this week. The next few Spurs games are postponed/canceled due to multiple players testing positive. We passed one year from our first covid-19 case here. (Note: This was not actually a San Antonio case. That first case was March 13th. However, when Covid first came to the US, travelers from China were quarantined for several weeks, and the US chose one of our Air Force bases in SA as the quarantine location. One of those folks was the positive test, and never had any exposure to SA folks, thus didn’t contribute to our first cases here.) Generally, though, most of our news this week was with the Snowpocalypse, which I’ll save for another post.

Moving forward
I have no idea. For the first time, everything feels really unpredictable. Before, while the predictions were bad, it at least followed fairly historically-predictable patterns! But when you start having to factor in mass gatherings for warmth/water, an energy grid failure, a water system failure, EMS out in full force to help folks who were too stupid to stay off the roads, etc? Maybe it’ll be all right and the city will make sure everyone is wearing masks at these large centers. (I doubt that’ll be possible, but I know they’ll try.) Or maybe we’ll have another surge. I don’t know. But it feels helpless and hopeless and scary right now. Especially given that we’re not fully out of the woods yet on the electricity and water issue!

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Wellness Wednesday – Enjoyment vs Necessity

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Thistle

They say the key to sustainability with any fitness plan is enjoyment. And for years, I’ve stuck with this motto. I’m fortunate enough to enjoy many types of exercise, and after forcing myself to do HIIT (I despise HIIT) for awhile in 2011 and 2012, I’ve been good at mostly sticking to workouts that I enjoy. Sometimes that means lots of running, and other times it means lots of yoga. Sometimes it means that I over-exercise because I’m trying to do All The Workouts and then I crash.

The one thing I’ve never really done with fitness, though, is apply my nutrition philosophy – healthy but reasonable – to it. In my mind, as long as I exercised often and diversely, I didn’t need to worry beyond that.

But perhaps I do.

(2012)

“Healthy but reasonable” as a motto for nutrition has meant that I eat in a way that is sustainable long term. It means that I don’t restrict/remove whole food groups, but I also don’t eat only what I enjoy. If I ate only what I enjoyed, I’d never pick up another piece of fruit or vegetable again. I don’t like fruits or vegetables. I never have. At best, I got to a point where I found ways to eat produce that were enjoyable, which is not the same thing as enjoying the produce itself. But a healthy diet necessarily includes foods that I would never eat without making the conscious decision to do so, and so I make that conscious decision. At the same time, I eat chocolate probably every day. Not massive amounts of it, but some, because I love it, and giving it up would make me go crazy and send my eating patterns into a tailspin. (Hell, even during my ill-advised months with paleo/whole30 eating, I mixed cocoa powder with coconut manna and put it on grapes as a snack to quell chocolate cravings!) This is my balance. This keeps me eating well enough – a healthy-but-reasonable diet.

So what are the fruit-and-vegetable equivalents of fitness? Strength training and injury prevention (stretching, warm-ups, foam-rolling, rest days, ice when necessary, etc). You know what I really don’t like to do? Strength training and injury prevention. Lifting weights is BORING. Warm-ups feel like a waste of time when I just want to get out there and go. Foam rolling hurts like a mf. It’s far easier to just skip all these things, skimp on the post-workout stretches, get a yoga workout in every once in awhile and say it’s enough. Hint: it’s not.

(2014)

Did you know that one of the best indicators of longevity is grip strength? How is grip strength built? Weight training. Weight training builds both muscles and bones, improves circulation, increases metabolism, decreases the aging process, helps prevent injury, and in general is one of the very best things a person can do. And GAH I’m just not one of those people who enjoy it. Maybe if I was doing it with a group or something, like in a crossfit class? I don’t know. But just lifting weights in my room? Uuuuugh.

Like eating my vegetables, though, I know it needs to be done. So I’ve decided to begin a weight lifting program again this week. I was doing one over the summer, and it worked well for me in a time when the heat/humidity was so awful that I didn’t want to be outside. Plus, I was up in WI and not around all the folks that I hike with. After I got home, though, I had hiking and my running park and all the other things I prefer to do, and I gave it up. It is time to bring weights back into my life.

(2013)

The other thing that prompted this? I spent all of last week sitting around because my left ankle/foot/skin swelled up to insane levels and was painful to the touch, while my right hip succumbed to severe sciatica again. It was December all over again – just walking to the mailbox had me limping! I felt so much better in January…when I was doing yoga most days. TBH, I’ve not been terribly interested in yoga these days. I’d much rather being doing something else. And so I’ve skipped it more and more…which means that my tendons/muscles have all tightened…which has caused my feet and hips to get all wonky again…yeah. Skipping my yoga is the opposite of injury prevention. And coupled with avoiding my foam roller, my body is in agony. I actually got on my foam roller last weekend, and even the parts that don’t usually hurt (like my upper back) were screaming in pain. Sigh. You know what gets me to do my yoga more often? Weight training, because yoga serves as my warm-ups.

So yes, it’s time for me to adopt a healthy-but-reasonable approach to exercise as well. Yeah, the hiking and running and boxing and dancing and walking and all the rest are great…but I need to include strength training, yoga, foam-rolling, and regular warm-ups and cool-downs/stretching. The same way I need to include fruits and veggies in my diet, even they aren’t my favorite.

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Sunday Coffee – 13 Years

Posted on February 14, 2021 by Thistle

Tomorrow is my 13th blogoversary, if you don’t count the weird transitions I went through between 2011 and 2014 due to many circumstances that I won’t go into here. I created my blog on Valentine’s Day in 2008 during a fit of major jet lag after coming home from Palestine, and wrote my first book review the very next day – marking, to me, the true beginning of my blog experience. The people I have met through blogging, both in person and online, have made a huge impact on my life, and blogging itself has been a wonderful experience in multiple ways. I don’t want to write a second post in two days that gets all mushy and nostalgic, though. Instead, I’m going to write up a few lists! Ha!

13 Random Excellent Books I Only Read Through Bloggers’ Influence

  1. The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist
  2. Germinal by Émile Zola
  3. Wine Isn’t Rocket Science by Ophelie Neiman
  4. All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior
  5. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
  6. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
  7. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
  8. Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller
  9. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
  10. Between Mom and Jo by Julie Ann Peters
  11. Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
  12. Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia
  13. The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis

(header version 2009 – no, I don’t know where this photo came from)

13 Moments That Fellow Bloggers Have Touched My Life

  1. Kristen sending me my favorite chocolates as well as Guatemala Worry Dolls when I was very depressed/anxious.
  2. Being voted “best writing” waaaaay back when blog awards were a thing
  3. Bloggers making and sending (music) mix lists to me
  4. Bloggers sending international non-English Harry Potter books when I was collecting
  5. Being told that I was a “rock star” in the book blog world (you know, back in 2010 when book blogging was much bigger and when I was a full-on book blog, heh)
  6. Blog friends wanting/volunteering to read my manuscripts and offering critique
  7. Adam sending cards to my family – names all correct! – at random times, just because he’s kind
  8. Bloggers rallying around me in a private FB group during my trauma-year in Boston
  9. Bloggers also rallying around me after the Incidents in 2009 and 2010 (y’all know who you are! Love y’all!)
  10. Being told that I was the inspiration behind folks starting to run, losing weight, getting fit, hiking, etc
  11. Inclusion in book swaps and secret book-Santa swaps
  12. Reaching out to connect on other social media platforms, especially those who left blogging so the connection would be lost without this
  13. Finding inspiration in the things other bloggers do, whether that is running, writing, traveling, budgeting, crossfit, getting articles published, teaching, etc etc

(header: version 2010)

13 Bloggers I Have Yet To Meet In Person But Hope To Someday

  1. Bryan
  2. Allie
  3. Gricel
  4. Adam
  5. Lu
  6. Shaina
  7. Hannah
  8. Selena
  9. Becca
  10. Nancy
  11. Stephanie C
  12. Jennifer H
  13. Nan

(This is by no means comprehensive – just the first 13 who came to mind! Also, some of these folks are technically “former bloggers” but they 100% count!)

(Generic header from WP: era 2014)

13 Reasons I Keep Blogging

  1. It provides a creative outlet now that I’m no longer writing fiction.
  2. It helps me to sort through my thoughts better than a journal.
  3. Connecting with other folks, making friends and deepening friendship
  4. I love having a book journal to look back on!
  5. Y’all encourage me and push me when I’m feeling down.
  6. It gives me something to focus on when I’m anxious.
  7. Broadening my book experience to books and genres I wouldn’t have tried without y’all
  8. Learning about personal points of view I may not have encountered otherwise
  9. I really enjoy telling stories.
  10. It’s a good way to keep track of events, body-data, things my kids said/did, photos, travel memories, etc.
  11. It’s part of my identity by now!
  12. It’s been a (fairly) consistent part of my life for 13 years when many of those years were a bit touch-and-go in other areas.
  13. I still enjoy it, especially after giving up the more rigid aspects I once held myself to (pre-2011).

(a failed header attempt from 2017)

So…happy blogoversary to this little project of mine, named after a short story I wrote long ago, and which has endured moves, shutdowns, changes, and all manner of insanity over the last 13 years. Thank you to all the folks who have stuck with me all this time, and those who have begun to read in the time since. Love you all!

(current header: 2017)

PS – I think it might be time to change my header again. That photo is quite some years old now. I’m trying to remember how many headers I’ve been through since 2008. A half-dozen-ish? Either way, I’m thinking it’s time for a revamp. The current photo is a bit outdated.

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Galentine’s Day: The Best People

Posted on February 13, 2021 by Thistle

A few weeks ago, I went for a hike with two friends at a park here in town that I’d never been to. It took me months to get to that park. Agoraphobia had kept me from it for nearly a year, afraid of going to someplace I’d never been, in a parking situation known to be a bit fraught. My hiking friends – especially on the leadership team of my group – know about my agoraphobia, and one of the women I was with this day had gone out of her way to 1) take a photo of the parking lot for me so that I knew what I was getting into, and 2) scheduled the hike on a weekday when the park wouldn’t be busy. She had been so patient with me as I’d signed up and then backed out of multiple hikes at this park, and she helped me to get there.

(Nat and me)

Now, to someone else, this may just sound like friendship, but to me, this is Above and Beyond. All my life, I’ve been taught to rely on myself or my family for everything. When I heard of other people calling on friends for favors of more than a fleeting or superficial nature, I didn’t understand. I only had one friend that I would call on for larger favors, and I’ve known her for so long that she IS family. My kids have called her Aunt Natalie since they were babes, and the two of us couldn’t be closer if we were blood. Beyond that, I was just never taught about Friends. There was Family, there may be one or two folks of Chosen Family like Natalie, and then there were the friends who were in your circle but ultimately just of the casual variety.

(5k with Steph & writer friends)

In 2014, I wrote a scene in one of my novels that highlighted the friendship between three women during a time of crisis for one. The scene made me ache. At the time, I was going through severe trauma, moving cross-country while my marriage was falling apart at the seams. My entire support system was here in San Antonio, consisting mostly of family, and I had nothing and no one in Boston where I was going. I was also in the process of realizing that I needed something beyond family during a crisis of this sort. I’d made quite a number of good writer friends, including Stephanie (who I mention often), over the six months before my family moved, and between my family falling apart and leaving the small non-family support system I’d built up, I was starting – at age 35 – to recognize the value of Friendship. [At the time, I called it Tribe, but have since learned about the whitewashing and appropriation of the word, so I’ve stopped.]

(hiking friends)

Fast forward back to this hike a few weeks ago with two hiker friends, one of whom encouraged and helped me for months to get out to this particular park. While the three of us were out there, we discussed bringing different members of our family out to a hike with the group, and how some family members would be great, and others not so much. I tried to imagine my mother on one of these hikes, because she loves nature and I think she would love many of the parks I’ve visited. But she would hate being out with this group. I tried to puzzle out why in my head, because it was something I knew by instinct and couldn’t figure out exactly why. Til it hit me: my mom dislikes women and puts no value on female friendships. I’m 41 years old and it’s not like I didn’t know this about my mom before now, but it suddenly struck me just how much that viewpoint influenced the way I viewed family, friends, and friend groups for a big chunk of my life.

After writing that scene in 2014 when I was struggling so much, I began to turn outward (outside folks) instead of inward (family) for friendship. During my year in Boston, I formed an online circle in a private group on Facebook to help support me during that year of extremely traumatic events. I traveled down to SA twice that year to stay both with family and with friends – the first time I’d stayed with friends since childhood sleepovers – and Stephanie came up to Boston twice to visit and travel together. A year after we moved back to SA, I ended up in the emergency room with a swollen kidney, and it was Stephanie I called to watch my kids instead of one of my parents. I began to host friend gatherings at home (pic), from book clubs to brunch to super bowl viewings. Many of the in-town friends I had moved away for one reason or another, so I sought out new in-person groups, eventually finding my Circle in this hiking group.

They really are the best people. I can’t say that I’ve developed a friendship as close as that to Natalie (chosen family) or Stephanie (who is practically chosen family by now), but I’m experiencing a level of friendship between super-close and casual. A place I’ve had no experience with for most of my life. I have a whole circle of women who care about me, and who I care about. Women who bring each other birthday gifts just because, and host Galentine’s Day Secret Sister exchanges (–> that’s what I got this year!!), and offer their homes for trying a rowing machine or watching movies on the screened-in-porch…and take photos of parking lots to help ease the anxiety of one of the weirdos in their midst. The very best people.

This is a photo collage of (part of) the circle I surrounded myself with in the traumatic years between 2014 and 2019. This is pre-hiking group, and includes old friends, new friends, blogger peeps, fellow writers, people I met through weight loss groups, many who moved away, and people from all around the country. It’s by no means comprehensive, but as I’m sharing tales of the wonderful women in my life, they all deserve to be featured here as well. So to Nikki, Susan, MJ, Trish, Christina, Julie, Andi, Karen, Ceri, Amanda, Liza, Erin, Heidi, Kristen, Marcia, Sarah, Paula, Emily, Kim, Hannah, Ann Marie, all those mentioned above already, and the wonderful hiking friends that I’ve made over the last 14 months: Happy Galentine’s Day, I love you each and all, and thank you for all that you have meant to me these last seven years.

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Wellness Wednesday – Hiking Bingo

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Thistle

Hey look! I updated my Wellness Wednesday button for the first time in nearly six years, haha!

*****
Back in early 2020, I put together a Running Bingo for myself, based on official running events. (Of course, I had no idea that covid would essentially make all running events virtual from mid-March on, but hey…) While I haven’t been able to fill out much of that Bingo yet re: covid, I really enjoy the concept and decided to put together a similar hiking version for myself. Of course, there aren’t really “official hiking events” like there are 5Ks and such, so this is a Bingo that is entirely based on day-to-day hikes. They can be done individually or with others. The only rule is no category repeats – I can’t use one hike to cross off two different categories.

I can take as many years as I want to fill out this board, but honestly, I’m hoping to fill it out in a shorter time – potentially by the end of 2022 if travel resumes at some point. The categories, listed below, range in difficulty, and there’s no backdating previous hikes. This bingo started on Feb 1, 2021. I’ll keep track of individual dates on the list below, and periodically update this post with a larger photo of the board with hikes crossed out.

Complete: 25 of 25 – and done! Completed 1/12/22

  1. Family hike – 8/29/21
  2. With a friend – 2/21/21
  3. State park – 2/27/21
  4. Easy hike – 3/27/21
  5. Themed hike – 4/2/21 (wildflower!)
  6. Travel 3+ hours away from home – 9/26/21
  7. Journaling hike – 4/11/21
  8. New-to-me place – 4/3/21
  9. National park – 9/28/21
  10. Group hike – 4/17/21
  11. Winter hike – 2/15/21
  12. Double loop – 3/7/21
  13. Freebie – 4/21/21
  14. A hike with a picnic – 1/12/22
  15. Over a bridge or through water – 2/20/21
  16. A well-known-to-me trail – 2/18/21
  17. Medium hike – 3/12/21
  18. With a pet (yours or someone else’s) – 3/13/21
  19. Lead a hike – 5/2/21
  20. Difficult hike – 3/18/21
  21. With a newbie – 4/10/21
  22. Overnight trip – 9/25/21
  23. Hike 5+ miles – 11/6/21
  24. Hike in another state – 9/29/21
  25. Summer hike – 8/14/21

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Sunday Coffee – Missed Opportunity. Or Not.

Posted on February 7, 2021 by Thistle

On my first roundup of 2021 hikes, I mentioned seeing a family hiking at Lockhart State Park. To recap, the family consisted of a man, woman, and two children aged roughly 1 and 3 years old. The younger was in a big pack on the man’s back, clearly created to be a hiking child carrier. The older was hiking on his own, wearing a toddler-sized Camelbak (something I didn’t even know existed until that hike).

When I saw that family, I had a pang of regretful nostalgia. It made me wish that Jason and I had taken up hiking earlier, and done this with our boys on a regular basis. They would have been so cute, these little guys –> all with their own baby Camelbaks, trekking up hills with us. (Photo is from 2007, Morrigan (left) aged 6, Ambrose (right) aged 4, and Laurence (middle) just one month shy of 3 years old.)

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that in reality, this never would have happened. When our boys were that little, Jason and I were both very young. We were either in school or working (or both), struggling to make ends meet. Our kids were born in very quick succession, with the oldest only three years old when the third was born. Once we moved to Texas, in fall 2005, I suddenly became a stay-at-home mom to three kids aged five and under. My job was 24/7, and the last thing I wanted to do was to spend extra time driving my kids across the state to different parks and help them along a hike. Frankly, I was desperate for time away from home, and time away from children. I was exhausted and frequently frustrated and near tears a lot. Could that have been different if we waited to have kids until we were older, with more established jobs/income, and had them further apart from each other? Sure. That just wasn’t our reality.

And in truth, we did take the boys hiking. Never with specialized gear – we couldn’t afford stuff like that! – but we did always enjoy hiking, and periodically took the boys out on family hikes.

Photo is from May 2006 at nearby Comanche Lookout Park (aged 5, 3, and 2). I took the boys out here all the time once our family became a two-car family in 2008. The boys loved this until right about when they became teenagers, at which point it was all groans and ughs and booooringggs. Heh. But I have a lot of good memories on those trails. Example: Morrigan, taking off running: “Accelerate!” Laurence, copying him but still only 3-4 years old: “Ex-Celery!”

In 2008, and later again in 2012, our family went climbing up Enchanted Rock with extended family. Enchanted Rock is a several-hour drive for us, and it’s often very crowded. It’s also a very tough park to hike, up a smooth granite dome. The boys were champs both times they’ve been. (Left photos both top and bottom are on the same spot, the plaque that marks the highest spot of the rock.)

We’ve also hiked other parks and trails around town with family. Eisenhower is a big favorite, especially around Christmas. We’ve been to multiple parts of the very long Salado Creek Trail. Ambrose took up geocaching for awhile when he was younger. And then there were the hikes in Boston and Wisconsin while we lived there. So again, it’s not like we’ve never done any family hiking. The reality is just that we did what we could, with the time, energy, and finances we had.

So yeah, maybe we never had a baby Camelbak or pint-sized kids out at middle-of-nowhere State Parks. But my initial fit of regretful nostalgia cleared up the more I thought about it. We gave those boys lots of good experiences hiking, as well as walking, biking, swimming, kayaking, running, ice skating, and other outdoor/sporty activities. And I’m okay with that.

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Quarantine Diaries – Weeks 46 and 47

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Thistle

Another two weeks, another Quarantine post. We’re only a few weeks off from an entire year of this pandemic now, and the end is still a pipe dream at this point. The thing that concerns me the most right now is the news that the South African variant has reached the US, with two cases found in South Carolina. Given the abysmal way the US has handled this pandemic so far, I’m terrified how this is going to affect us long term. I’ve heard Moderna is working on a supplemental vaccine, and Pfizer is “confident” that their current vaccine will protect against this particular variant. Everything is so uncertain, and sometimes it feels like even post-vaccine, things will just continue on in this isolating system, especially if so many people refuse vaccination, allowing the disease to spread and mutate even further. “Herd immunity” doesn’t work on a mutating virus.

I’ll be honest: I’m also very tired of people talking about the economic impact of this disease while refusing to take the steps needed to eradicate it. If we had just shut everything down for a few weeks last spring, and subsequently did the same each time a new wave approached, we wouldn’t be in a position where everything is still mostly or partially closed nearly a year later. It’s like no one is capable of longterm planning anymore. Yes, an event like the Rodeo may bring in $250 million+ each year, and that really helps the city and all its inhabitants, but the solution is not to just go ahead with the event regardless (see more below). The solution is to deal with the disease aggressively with short-term economic effects in order to have economic gains going forward. If anyone truly believes that a year of partial closures has been better for the economy than a couple short full-lockdowns followed by periods of greater reopening would have been, then 1) they know nothing about economics, 2) or about history, 3) or about the practices of countries who have managed to keep disease numbers low with the economy relatively stable. It’s downright irresponsible to pretend we can continue this way, and the longer this pandemic continues, the longer the economy will suffer in addition to our collective physical and mental health. /endrant.

Maybe I’m just feeling a bit gloomy this week. It’s Super Bowl weekend, and people are going to gather and spread the disease further, again, and I’m so fed up with that kind of irresponsible behavior at this point.

Week 46 – January 22 to 28
166,022 cases, 2,027 deaths, 1,459 seven-day rolling average, 15% positivity rate. The numbers are finally declining. The positivity rate is down by 2.5%, the third weekly drop. The seven-day average is down over 500/day, and we’ve had a few noticeably-low-case-number days this week. The hospitals dropped under 1300 patients for the first time this year. It seems like the spike in numbers that very clearly came from the holiday season is finally plateauing off. Still going to be awhile til we recover, though – our reduced numbers are well over where we were at our previous peak in July, and several major local events/festivities are set to go on like normal (sigh). And not all the numbers are good: the local high school this week reported another 18 students and 1 staff member positive for covid just this week, with a new notice every single day.

Speaking of testing positive for covid, I found out this week that my cousin-in-law, Gina, apparently had the virus. She didn’t say anything about it until after she recovered, but she tested positive on Jan 12th. Her symptoms were apparently very mild – she said she felt much worse with flu – and she recovered quickly. Neither her husband (my cousin) or their kids tested positive, so I’m very grateful. On the other side of the spectrum, Laurence went in for a covid test at CVS at the end of this week. It’s unlikely he has it, but he’s complained a few times in the last few weeks about not being able to smell certain things, or things smelling/tasting wrong/different, and then mid-week he felt feverish and achy with a headache and chills. Likely it’s allergy-related, as he has bad allergies at this time of year, but we figured better safe. We should get the results sometime next week. (Photo: Gina and me going to a movie in 2018.)

For the second time in the last ten months, I ate inside a restaurant. It was up in Marble Falls, which is in a county that has had a total of around 2300 covid cases since the beginning of the pandemic (less than 5% of the total population of the county). Despite their low numbers, the restaurant was taking every safety precaution, from masked employees to partitions between tables to QR code menus to condiments handed out in individual packets. (Bonus: It was as delicious as it was safe!) This is how you do things right. Unlike, say, our local Walmart, which I’ve complained about multiple times over the last ten months, and which finally had to close for a few days this week for “deep cleaning and sanitizing.” They refused to give any further reason or to say what prompted the shutdown, but I’m sure they broke enough violations to finally get the city involved. Glad we haven’t been there in ages!

The big thing that worries me right now is the way officials are talking, pushing back the vaccination timeline so much. I’ve noticed this over the last few months, but there have been some big jumps this week, from “general population getting the vaccine in March/April” to “hopefully we’ll get to the general population by the fall” to “we might be able to start vaccinating children maybe early 2022.” We’re all sick of this, and the US wasted most of the last year making things worse (thanks Trumpy), but the prospect of this continuing on and on for another year or more is agonizing. I miss little things so much. Cafes and movie theatres and browsing the library and going to the grocery store without it being An Ordeal. I miss my kids being in school, and having the house to myself for a few hours each day, and having the option to travel. Don’t get me wrong – I know that this is what we need to do, and I’m willing to do it. I’m also incredibly grateful to have a support community in my hiking group that keeps me sane with masked-up, small group, social contact. But GAH I hope this talk of “maybe in a year or two more” is pessimistic rather than realistic.

Week 47 – January 29 to February 4
178,662 cases, 2,186 deaths, 1,335 seven-day rolling average, 11.4% positivity rate (4th week of a good drop!). Hospitals numbers are still dropping as well, another good sign. In our local high school, 6 students and 1 staff were reported positive for covid this week, which is actually down quite a bit for our school. Everywhere else, though, school covid cases in SA have apparently doubled since winter break – alarming given all the news that keeps saying that supposedly kids being in school doesn’t spread the disease. (Why do these kinds of news articles exist?? It’s very clear that kids spread the disease as much as adults, especially teenagers!)

Speaking of kids, there was some incredibly sad news in San Antonio this week. A nine-year-old fourth grader in normal health began to complain last Friday that her stomach hurt, and she was sent home from school. She died of covid three days later, becoming the youngest death from the disease in our community. This is not okay. We are all not okay right now. January was reported as the most deadly month for SA on record, with around 600 total deaths for the month (more than a quarter of our total deaths).

Any yet, we still see mixed reactions to the pandemic here. Fiesta, which was postponed and then canceled in 2020, has been postponed again this year, from April to June. (I guess we’ll see if it gets pushed back further or canceled again as the time approaches. June seems an inopportune time, though – it’s frickin’ HOT in June here, and Fiesta is mostly outdoors!) On the flip side, the Stock Show & Rodeo is not planning to postpone. I have no doubt this is a disaster waiting to happen, but city officials have no authority to stop them as long as they follow state guidelines. Unfortunately, reduced admissions and cleaning teams aren’t actually going to stop spread when “reduced occupancy” is still tens-of-thousands, UGH! That’s too many people in the same place. It’s following the letter of the law rather than the spirit, and sadly, that’s exactly the behavior and attitude that’s going to keep this pandemic going…and going…and going… (Not to mention, there’s a big chunk of those Rodeo attendees who are anti-maskers…sigh.)

In home news this week: Morrigan flew back to Kansas on Friday. Air travel is obviously not the best mode of transportation, but it was our only choice this time. Frustratingly, the person sitting next to him on his first (of two) flights told him, after landing, that her husband tested positive for covid that day. !!! UGH. Regardless of whether Morrigan can catch covid right now – since the whole testing issue got confused last December – so many others on that plane can. This is why we can’t get the pandemic under control!

Beyond that, Laurence’s covid test came back negative, which is pretty much what we expected but still good news. I also had my second vaccine this week, which I was relieved about because there have been a lot of delays in vaccine shipments and the city mass vaccination clinic actually had to push back this week’s appointments (which were all second doses) for two weeks! I’m not sure if the city is just prioritized below the hospitals systems or what (mine is through a hospital system), but I was very relieved! As for side effects, I had a bit of a sore arm again (though not as bad as the first shot), and I spent most of the day after the vaccine with a terrible headache that wouldn’t budge. I have no idea if this was vaccine-related – about a third of people have headaches and fatigue after the second dose – or if it was a very normal-for-me pre-cycle hormone headache. That was the extent of any reaction. In two weeks, I’ll be as protected as currently possible, and I’ll keep an eye out for when I can schedule Jason and my kids for their vaccines, though that’ll be awhile. Likely autumn, from what I’m hearing now.

Moving forward
Super Bowl weekend. Pray for us. Don’t get me wrong – I love the Super Bowl and we’re planning a party just for the four of us in this household. But dammit, I want to be able to host a proper party next year, and each time one of these events occur and people have 50 folks over to their houses to drink and watch the game together, we just get another spike. I’m tired of living in the Land of Instant Gratification.

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