Our Friends!

Look what came today! A little "thank you for being such awesome friends/hosts and Oregon housewarming" gift from Kurt and Alex.

When they were here I made a yummy soup that involved puréeing...but I was puréeing in a tiny little 2 cup Kitchenaid. Now, I'll be puréeing for days in this giant!



And him...



I may or may not purée him.

Treat Yo Self!

Wine
Chocolate
Pens

The faster you go, the more likely you are to injure yourself

This is not a maxim that most runners would hold themselves to, and in fact I believe it may be some sort of runner sacrilege to speak of not going as fast and hard as you possibly can. However, I am not a person who has ever believed that going fast, hard, or all out is the way to do things. But sometimes, it just has to be so.

This is a metaphor for life, people. Case in point as to why I have blogged in a week's time. We had some very special friends in town and did some fun things. This also involved me getting very behind in my studies, for which I am paying now. HARD.

Some highlights from our fun week:

Samples of yummy beer

We force Alex to eat a doughnut literally the size of hr head

And Kurt too

An Inversion! If you don't know, and inversion is when the clouds go to the bottom and the sun goes to the top. It makes life very foggy. But if you hike up very high, you can see the sun.

We are above the clouds

Kurt makes friends with the baby boy

I get a warm jacket

The Other Way

A few night ago I officially became a big girl when I decided to walk home from class through the dark and scary graveyard.





And I only got scared once, when I imagined a hand emerging from the ground and grabbing my ankle.

That didn't happen.

Doing Science

It just occurred to me that in pursuing a PhD, I am doing science. I may not be pouring things into test tubes or creating monsters, but I am testing, experimenting, theorizing, and definitely going a little mad.


It's alive, people.

Amazing!

Tight rope walking across Niagara Falls

OR

Me running 7.4 miles in the middle of the day on a Tuesday

The balance

Upon returning to school, I swore to myself that I would strike the perfect balance between school work and real life: continue to pleasure read, sit in silence when needed, drink wine and stare at the wall, etc...
Well, it is the beginning of week 2, and I have spent far too many hours already not doing what I said I would do, and rather reading philosophy. I admit it is much easier said than done when hundreds of pages of reading are assigned.
On the upside, I am week 3 into marathon training and managing to sleepily read a few pages of a fun book before falling asleep at night. So, perhaps, some balance has been achieved.
Forge ahead!

As if I didn't need any more reasons to take pictures of myself

Siamese twin me


Swirly face me




Black and white me



Cool retro colors me



Shall I go on?

My girl

Produce to Produce

Deep Sea Diving

Tomorrow I go back underwater for another rip roaring term of graduate school. In honor of the time spent on land, a photo journal of my pleasure reads from December:












4 books in a month, not too shabby.

F-you, Portland!

After I go and tell the world about our love affair, you go and do a thing like that. How could you, PDX? I feel so betrayed.

Year out, Year in

With so many "Year in ______" and "Best _______ of 2012" lists going around out there, I felt the need to create my own for 2012.  So, ladies and gentleman, I introduce to you
Blaine's 2012 Year in Things:
- Moving to Oregon

- Driving across the country with hubby and dogs on the way to Oregon

- Boots and "Treating yourself"

- Graduate School. So much of it.

- Lots of yoga

- I ran this much

942 miles, 162.75 hours, average distance per run: 5 miles

-Foxes

- I discover Shellac nail polish and then hate it and then love it again



- Love and Friendship Reevaluation and Nurturing it All, a lot.