My 12 mile challenge

Last week, Derek, my friend Meredith and I hiked the fort to sea trail. It's 12 miles round trip.

I wasn't sure I could do it, I've never hiked that far in one day. I had a couple months to get ready, but I didn't do much as I could or should have. I just didn't know what to expect.

I did the obvious things to get ready. I bought a back pack, a good pair of walking/hiking shoes, thick socks, a bladder for my pack, I took some long walks, wore my new shoes every day, but I should have done more.

All in all, I did really well on the hike. At the half way point, I had an out, I could have called Meredith's husband to come get me, but I didn't. It was a huge accomplishment for me to walk the 6 miles, I wanted to go even bigger and do the whole 12.

It was hard and my shoes killed my feet (the thing I should have done was get those good and broken in before I hiked that far, my blisters had blisters!), but even as hard as it was and as tired and sore as I was, it was one of the most awesome things I've ever done.

I am excited and very much looking forward to future hikes. First things first, I need to get my shoes broken in, plus I need to use the treadmill at the gym to strengthen my legs and get them more in shape for hills. If it was flat, I could probably have walked 20 miles, it's the hills that killed me.

I have to say a HUGE thank you to Derek and Mer, I don't think I could have done it without them. They were so supportive and stuck by me. I was hurting and probably not very much fun to be around, but they helped pull me through.

Doggie Dash

Saturday was the 24th Annual Doggie Dash. It's a race/walk to raise money for the Oregon Humane Society. The company I work for was sponsoring and had free entries, so I decided to do the 2.5 mile bridge to bridge walk.

Both mom and Derek agreed to join me, along with mom's dog, Pepper. We would have taken my dog, Rikki, but her shots aren't up to date, so she had to stay home. Next year, she'll get to go for sure.

I was a little worried how the weather would be. The last couple weeks the weather has gone from sunny one day to pouring down rain the next. Friday was beautiful, so I figured Saturday it would be pouring, but no, it was perfect. Partly cloudy, no rain, no wind. We couldn't have asked for better weather for our walk.

We got to the waterfront, got registered and I was overwhelmed by all the dogs. They came in every shape, size and color, from the tiniest tea cup chihuahua to the biggest Irish wolfhound. It was the coolest thing!

Everyone was so nice and friendly and dogs were all getting along for the most part. It was weird how little barking there was. You'd think with that many people/dogs in one place it would be really loud, but wasn't any different than any other festival on the waterfront.

We started our walk between SW Stark and Pine and went up and over the Hawthorne Bridge, along the Eastbank Esplanade, across the Steel Bridge and then back to the waterfront. It was really fun walking across the bridges, the views were great. 2.5 miles on concrete is a rough walk, but I did better than I thought I would. I was breaking in my new walking shoes and my feet and legs felt pretty good afterwards.

All in all, it was a really awesome day and such a great, fun experience. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

The Host

I have a new favortite book, The Host by Stephanie Meyer. She wrote the Twilight series, which I love, but this book is even better. It's a great love story with some sci-fi thrown in. It's a really cool take on an invasion of the body snatchers story.

I started reading the book and I couldn't put it down. It's over 600 pages and I had it read in less than 4 days.

If you're looking for a good book, read The Host, I highly recommend this book!!!

Over a month in to spring and no sun

Here it is, May 11th and it's another day of rain and I'm SOOOO tired of it! I want and need sunshine! I want at least a week of consecutive sunny days to wash away the gray for good!

I love living in Oregon, can't imagine living anywhere else, but when spring arrives and it doesn't bring the sun, just more rain, I feel robbed! All I want is to be outside. Every time there's a sunny day, I make sure I spend as much time outside as I can, because seems like each sunny day is followed by rain, rain and more rain!

I say Bring it on, rain, you can't last forever! You're not going to keep me inside, either. I am making plans to hike and walk and vacation and if it's all in the rain, so be it. You're not going to keep this native Oregonian inside!

Think positive and let light into your life

When life has you down, think positive, it will get better.

 

When you are in a rough patch and it seems as though nothing but negative is coming your way, think positive, this rough patch won't last forever.

 

When you wake up feeling sick every day, whether it's a headache or stomach ache, that's not right, something is wrong, try thinking positive.

 

I used to be a horribly negative person and I still have my moments, but through therapy and the help of some really amazing friends, I've learned to be a more positive person. Once I started thinking and acting positively, more good things started to happening to me in my life. Once I cut out the people in my life who did nothing but bring me down, I started feeling so much better.

 

There are some people that I love who can be really negative and I want so much for them to be more positive, I think they'd feel so much better about themselves and their life. I know it's not easy. Life can be very difficult.

 

One person in particular, I've had talks with them about being more positive and when they were working at being more positive, you could tell, things really started looking up for them. It made me SO happy to see that!

 

I know it's not easy and it takes a lot more energy to be positive than to be negative, but it is so much more rewarding!

 

You know the old saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

 

See the brighter side of life.

 

SMILE! You are LOVED!

Bye bye writers block

I think I've finally slayed the writer's block dragon. I wrote out some of the feelings I was keeping bottled inside. I haven't posted it, might not ever post it, but at least it's out of me.

It's so funny, I started this blog for me, not for anyone else, yet, I feel as though I have to censor myself , because I know who reads this and I don't want to hurt any of those people, which then gives me writers block, then I start to feel gross, because I have all these thoughts that are running around in my head instead of me writing them and letting them out of me. Which really defeats the purpose of writing my blog in the first place.

So, to my friends, family and people that I love dearly, I'm writing this for me and if I say something here that hurts you or upsets you, I'm sorry, that is not my intention. This blog is my therapy and it has done wonders for me and helped me tremendously. Thank you for all your love and support, it means everything to me :)