In Style - or Not

To my surprise I found a huge InStyle magazine in my mailbox yesterday. I have no idea where it came from or why I got it. I certainly never purchased a subscription. In fact, I never even bought a single issue of a fashion magazine in my life. I wondered if maybe Karlo got it sent to me as a hint. LOL. Or maybe I recently bought something that landed me on a list of target market women. But then again, I can’t imagine Columbia, EMS, or LLBean share their customers with InStyle magazine. Where on earth did they get my name?

Given that it was free and sitting on the coffee table I was compelled to pick it up and flip through it last night. I couldn’t help but to feel guilty at the huge waste it was to send it to me. The magazine weighed about 2 pounds. It was huge! And filled with pages upon pages of stuff that I had positively no interest in. I mean I don’t really care where to find and buy the $400 jacket, $200 jeans, and $600 shoes that Cameron Diaz was spotted wearing. Are you kidding me?

I struggled to find one thing in the 300 pages that caught my eye. Finally I did. It was an ad for UGG boots. It had some hot chick in short shorts (wearing the ugliest UGG boots I ever saw) but it caught my eye and stopped me. Yeah, she had nice legs, but it was the cool dirt motorcycle that she was sitting on that intrigued me. That’s it. I’m hopeless in the fashion world. InStyle, please save a tree and a stamp and don’t send me anymore magazines.

I'm a Mess

Gee, not only do I not have any interesting or exciting stories off the top of my head, but the only think I can think to talk about is my current state of health. I must be getting old. Uuuugh.

Thanks to Penni, I got myself to the doctor's office on Friday and I'm so glad I did. I was heading downhill fast and there was no point in prolonging that agony. I got myself the prescription and what kills me is how stupid I am at the follow through. I take ridiculous care of Karlo. I insisted that he see his doctor for a follow up and was instructed to keep an eye on Karlo's temperature. We immediately went to CVS to buy a thermometer and then I painstakingly tested and re-tested both of our temperatures to make sure the thing was working properly. OK, to make sure I knew how to work it properly. I read and re-read all of Karlo's hospital paperwork to make sure I didn't miss a thing.

Then it comes to taking care of myself. I got my meds and starting taking them Friday night. I was due to take a dose every 12 hours and it wasn't until Sunday morning that I discovered the fact that I was supposed to take TWO pills every 12 hours. I, of course, didn't read the directions closely enough and was only taking one. Uuuuuugh. By Sunday I should have been feeling better if I had been taking the proper dosage. Idiot.

Next problem is my ears. The itching started to flair up (probably from eating pizza two nights in a row) and I decided to take another dose of anti-itch ear drops. Well, they proceeded to completely clog one ear, making me pretty much deaf and dizzy. Just what I needed in addition to the block head. I ran out on Sunday and got some ear wax cleaner and dripped that in hoping to clear the plug. No, it made it worst. I'm a mess. Three days now walking around partially deaf in my left ear, still congested from the sinus infection, and dizzy from the whole thing.

TGIF

I'm so happy that it's Friday and so ready to put this week behind me. It's been a long week of feeling miserable and I'm now only 30 minutes away from taking my first antibiotic to cure my sinus infection. I'm giddy with glee that I actually dragged myself to the doctor today (thank you Penni) and I know that it's a sure thing that I'll start to feel better in a couple short days. I just wish I knew why I'm so prone to these darn sinus infections. They are no fun, that is for sure.

So good bye crappy week. I'm ready for the weekend and the following week. That one is sure to be a bit more exciting than the last. Karlo leaves for his first ever trip to Tokyo and I can't wait to hear how that goes. He is going to HATE it and it is going to be the most entertaining thing in the world to hear his post trip stories. Karlo breaks out into hives when I make him go to Manchester because it's too crowded with people. WAIT until he sees the train station in Tokyo. Ha! That should fix his wagon about complaining about Manchester. Hmmmm, sounds like the time he took me to Quebec in the winter to make me understand that CT is NOT cold.

But while Karlo is being completely tortured in Tokyo, I won't be too far off of the same hell. I'll be in NYC for three days and I'm not all too thrilled about it. Well, I'm not thrilled about the Big Apple portion of the trip. I am, however, thrilled to pieces to be going to the biggest photography expo in the country. How sweet of a deal that my work is actually sending me and paying for it! I was hoping that Tina could tag along. I had visions of going out on the town in the evening with her, making some much needed memories. But unfortunately Tina is in a cast and on crutches and my visions didn't quite include me pushing her around in a wheelchair. LOL. Definitely not the party scene I hoped for. Sorry T :-(

Plans have changed a few times since booking the trip and now I'll be accompanied by my favorite cousin Jamie and my photo mentor from Texas. It will be non-stop photography talk for 3 days and I can't wait. Stay tuned for more on that upcoming trip.

To Call the Doctor or Not to Call the Doctor

I really should practice what I preach. I do such a good job at taking care of Karlo, insisting we do the right thing and see a doctor when I deem it necessary. Maybe I just had my fill lately with our little unscheduled trip to the hospital last week (a little kidney stone issue that I THANK GOD didn’t happen in the woods of Maine!) followed by the follow up visit to Karlo’s normal doctor. I guess I just had enough of doctors. But I’m sitting here struggling with my decision. I’m 99% sure I have another sinus infection and I wonder what the heck is wrong with me that I can’t ever just get a normal cold anymore. It’s always the same scenario with the same symptoms and I always wait a week to see if it will get better on its own, which it, of course, never does.

Uuuugh, it’s so frustrating. I feel like crap and I know the antibiotics will just cost me a couple hours of my time. Yup, that is the problem. Like I want to give up a couple hours of my time! Dammit Paula, call the doctor!

Never Ending Lists

My life seems to be getting consumed with lists. I think I spend more time making lists than I do checking things off my lists. I start every single day making a list of things that I was supposed to do the day before, but didn’t get to. Rather than having shrinking lists, the darn things just keep getting longer. My lists are out of control and need to be tamed. Do you know where I can find a list tamer?

It doesn’t help that I’m so completely exhausted that just the thought of performing the tasks on my lists makes me want to take a nap. On Sunday I had a less than stellar run. I’ve been all pumped up about my increasing running skills and the thought of doing the Manchester Road Race this year. So on Sunday we increased our distance a tiny bit and I didn’t do well. I finished, but I didn’t feel great like I normally do. This upset me greatly.

Then it was on to stacking wood. We got our second cord delivered on Sunday and I was excited to stack it. I breezed through the first cord on Saturday and was eager for another workout. Only this one wasn’t pleasant at all. I was tired and dizzy and my head was spinning. I chalked it up to allergies due to all the dust and dirt. I went inside and immediately fell asleep.

We made a nice dinner on Sunday night that I insisted I screwed up on. Nothing tasted right and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how I can mess up boxed rice! I complained about a yucky lunch yesterday and insisted on adding twice the sugar to my organic hot cocoa. Then last night we went out to our favorite oriental cafe for dinner and it was terrible. I got my usual dish of chicken, pork, and shrimp and couldn't distinguish between them. Finally, it hit me that my taste buds are not working properly. Come to think of it, neither is my sense of smell. Suddenly my shampoo and body gel lost there pretty scent. I refuse to let this cold come on full force. I don’t have time for this!

The highlight of my day yesterday was very easy to pick out. Work sucked due to my head ache and current overloaded work schedule and dinner was blah . . . so the easy winner event of the day was watching my niece play volleyball. Rocky Hill High took on EO Smith High, which was quite convenient for Karlo and I. We just zipped over to Mansfield after work and got to watch Nicole on the court. It took a lot of will power to keep my butt on the bleachers and not run out onto the court to steal a set. God, it is amazing how much I still love that sport. Karlo recently mentioned how amazed he is to see how much passion I have for photography. He can’t believe that I found something in my life to get me up before the sun and endure the cold for. I told him that before getting a ‘real’ camera the only thing that I ever had so much passion for was volleyball. It was MY LIFE for many many years. It made me sad to think about it being a thing of the past. I wonder if I still got it . . . . Santa, I want a ball for xmas!

Saying Goodbye to Acadia

Our last full day in the park was nearly a carbon copy of the day before. We started off with biking. Wait a minute. Back up. We really started off with catching the sunrise. I was diligent about getting up every morning to watch the sun come up. Karlo complained a bit, but being the trooper that he is, he always came with me. I just love the light during these precious few minutes of the day.


So biking was next on the agenda. This time we stayed closer to sea level and although that made me happy, the cloud cover and the wind made me long for a good long climb to warm myself up. Again, more reflections on the bike. I do miss the endless hours I used to spend pedaling. Seems to be the only and best time for me to reflect on life. I just marveled at the fact that most normal people head to a tropical beach for vacation and here we are freezing our tails off biking and hiking more miles in a day than most people do in months. And I was loving every minute of it. Well, maybe except for the being cold part. Here I was decked out in my EMS tights, LLBean fleece, North Face gloves, and Mountain Hardware jacket (I’m betting I just lost Tina there!) and I was still freezing. What is up with that?


OK, back to my story . . . So we biked for a couple of hours until my feet went numb from the cold. Next it was time for, you guessed it, a good long hike. Since we didn’t gain too much elevation on the bike we were due to climb another mountain. Karlo pretty much tricked me. We planned out our route in the car (also known as my oasis of comfort & warmth) and the original route didn’t involve going up and over the peak. But the alternate route was dreadful. The trail snaked along the side of the mountain on really technical rocky terrain that required scrambling on all fours. If you slipped, you were going straight down the cliff and into the lake. It was nerve racking and, at the pace I was going, I feared we wouldn’t make it back by dark. (God forbid I missed the sun set.) It was then that I decided up an over would be easier (and warmer). I’m glad we did it. Once again, the views were spectacular. And once again, I didn’t pull out my big camera. I think I’m giving myself too much credit for “taking the pressure off myself” for getting good shots. The truth was that I was terrified to fall and break the darn thing. My little point and shoot came in handy enough. There was one point where I was trying to get a good shot, but there were some pesky boulders in the way. “Karlo can you please move those rocks for me?”

Luckily we made it down in one piece and before the sun set. We treated ourselves to a nice seafood dinner overlooking the 'harbor' of Bar Harbor. We said goodbye to the cute little town and headed back to our cottage. The next day we would be saying goodbye to Mt. Desert Island and that would be hard :-( We snuck back the next morning for a nice 5 mile walk on the carriage roads before getting into the car and heading South.

One more quick pit stop before leaving the island. There was a winery with a big sign that said “Sweet Pea Farms.” Stop the car!!!!! Since Karlo has always called me Sweet Pea I needed a bottle of wine from this winery (or maybe 3 bottles because I couldn’t make up my mind which one I liked best). Seems we are becoming quite the winos with this being our 3rd wine tasting in a month. I loved the barn that the winery called home. Mostly because there was a giant moose head on the wall and that was the closest I came to Maine wildlife.

It was a quiet and sad drive South. Sad until we got to Freeport. Then I perked right up! It was time to go shopping. Yeah. We went out to dinner at a brewery and had the best Blacked Halibut Burrito in the world. It was funny because Karlo said he either wanted Mexican or Seafood. I found him both at once. We loved it so much we are planning to find recipes and try to cook it ourselves. You KNOW that says something because I can’t remember the last time we got inspired to cook. God it was good.

Spent the night in Freeport and then moseyed our way back home the next day. Oh wait, one more quick stop in Kittery. I scored big at the Columbia outlet. Yeah, I know, just what I need . . . more technical clothing. But I feel I earn the right to wear it. Lord knows I don’t earn the right to wear Prada!

I posted some of the silly snapshots taken with our point-n-shots here.

Acadia Day 2

Our original plan was to bike up the road to Cadillac Mountain. This is something that I’ve always wanted to do. OK, let me re-phrase that . . . I didn’t really want to do it, I just felt the burning need to do it for the sense of accomplishment and bragging rights. But when we scoped out the road the day before and saw how narrow the twisty road was, with no biking shoulder to speak of, and then realized how stinking windy it was, we thought better of this idea. I just had visions of being run off the road by leaf peepers, or worse, getting completely blow off the ridge. So we found some nice carriage roads (gravel roads closed to autos) and climbed just about the same elevation. This was so much of a nicer experience. The views were better during the climb and we had no worries of getting run over. As I huffed and puffed my way up the mountain the thought occurred to me that I seem to judge my vacations by the amount of calories burned. The more calories burned, the better the vacation. And this one was shaping up to be spectacular.

The only way to really appreciate these pictures is to have pedaled up from the lake. The views were well worth the climb.

We crawled up onto a big rock and sun bathed as we ate some snacks. Nothing feels better than guilt-free calories after a climb.

Of course the decent back down was a ball. This is what the carriage roads looked like. A bikers dream.


There was still plenty of day light left for a hike so we drove over to another section of the park that we never visited before and found a beautiful 5 or 6 mile hike around 2 lakes. I was worried about taking this on after that climb, fearing my knee would give me trouble, but I was having too much fun to notice any pain. Strangely I don’t have many pictures from this portion of the day. I was very proud of myself in that I didn’t have my big camera around my neck most of the time. I removed the pressure to take pictures and for the most part during our hiking and biking I just used my little point and shoot. I saved the big camera for the sunrises and sunsets and strolls around Bar Harbor.

To see some of my prettier pictures (not really showing the actual park) but pretty stuff around the outskirts, please click here.

Still more Maine notes to come. Please stay tuned for the not-so-riveting conclusion to one of our most story-free vacations.

Fun While It Lasted

I should be doing a dozen other important things right now, but I’m putting them all aside to take a little mental trip back to Maine. The fun started last Wednesday afternoon. We had originally planned to depart for our trip on Thursday, but after the hellish trip we had to NJ, I decided that we earned a half day from work so we took off early. We beat the Boston traffic and drove up to Portland and spent the night. We had a fun dinner at some Mexican chain which name escapes me at the moment. Then we strolled around the Mall of Maine until we couldn’t stroll anymore. We got an incredible night’s sleep and stayed in bed until our bodies decided to drag ourselves to Dunkin Donuts. I think I slept for nearly 10 straight hours. It was bliss.

The next day we took a very leisurely ride along the coastal Rt 1, making stops in Camden, Northport to walk our land, Stockton Springs to do a drive by on our house and have lunch. Next stop was Ellsworth where we shopped at the LLBean outlet and another favorite Maine chain for some supplies. We made it to our cabin in just enough time to unpack and figure out where to go for sunset. It was a very last minute decision to try to catch the sunset and we just barely made it to the shore in time for me to snap a few nice pics.


The next couple of days were simply perfect. The first day out we hiked up Cadillac Mountain. It was a very windy day and I nearly blew clear off the side of the mountain.


But it was so worth it. The views of the Bay where outstanding.

We took our time and stopped for silly pictures. Like me riding one of the stone markings.

This hike was slotted to take 4 hours, but even with all the goofing off we still finished it in 2.5 hours (big surprise). That left us plenty of time to take another hike. We drove down to the park loop which follows the most scenic part of the park down to the Sandy Beach. I had a ball watching all the dogs play on the beach.


Then we found a hidden path off the trail that took us to a completely remote area of rocks right along the shore. We had the whole place to ourselves and just played around. Here’s a picture of Karlo pointing out the fact that there were puffins right off shore, swimming in the water.

And here’s me totally ignoring him and not at all understanding that he was saying there were PUFFINS out there.


I would have killed to see a puffin. I tried like hell to enlarge some pictures enough to make them out, but no luck. Kicking myself for missing this!

While out there we had a complete photo session of me posing on the rocks in various yoga poses. This is becoming quite the tradition wherever we go. It was lots of fun and I got quite the work out. This probably explains why I wasn’t at all sore after all the hiking.

More to follow . . .

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Hey, that title is a song and I can’t for the life of me remember who sung it. I can hear it in my head and now it will be stuck there all day . . .

It pretty much sums up my life at this moment. I went from the bliss of one of the most beautiful places in this country (or world for that matter) to the harsh realities of work and home. It was like a slap across the face. Certainly not an easy transition. In Maine we had no worries in the world. We spent our entire days hiking and biking in Acadia National Park, our biggest decisions were which trails to take and when to stop for snacks. Oh and the most stressful decisions were always where to be for sunrise and sunset. I guess I did have to add a little bit of work and stress otherwise we might not be able to function. But it was soooo nice. We did what we love to do all day long. We filled our thoughts with dreams of moving to Maine and having this as our playground permanently. We literally lived in a fantasy world for 5 or 6 days. Then it all came to a screeching halt.

We didn’t even get home yet before Karlo started with the rushing and the pressure. He looked up toward the sky in Union and determined that the clouds would soon take over. He insisted that we need to take the dogs for a walk before we even unloaded the car. Really???? Is 10 or 15 minutes going to make that big of a difference? He insisted that it would and we would surely be walking in cloud cover if we didn’t rush, rush, rush. Sigh. The vacation was so incredibly OVER.

As soon as we got home it was a mad dash. We had to unpack, do laundry, Karlo had to wash every car we owned immediately. And then the lawn. Holy cow, the sky was going to fall if the leaves didn’t get blown and the grass get cut. No time for lunch. Back to work. It was during this fury of activity that it really hit me. It doesn’t matter where we live. We could own the most beautiful dream home on the most spectacular spot on the coast in the most relaxing state in the country . . . but still, if it was home, Karlo would turn it into nothing but all work and no play. Why do I even bother dreaming of this laid back Maine lifestyle? It’s a joke and a pipe dream that our location could ever change us. A slight feeling of depression started to sink in. At least it made me throw away the real estate booklets. I guess that was a good thing.

Please stay tuned for my vacation recap including lots of pictures. I just need a little time to catch up. OK, who am I kidding? I need a lot of time to catch up, but I’ll do my best.

I Need it Bad

Two days of Hell down and now it's just about time for vacation. I know I say this every time I go away, but my God do I need this break. I can count on one hand the number of nights I slept in my own bed over the past 4 weeks. My hair is so confused by all the different waters that it's rebelling and turning to straw. As if bad hair isn't enough, now my stress level has been cranked up causing my pinched nerve right before vacation.

Being in NJ for two days was not high on my list of things I wanted to do. It started with a long night of blowing up and tying 200 balloons when I should have been sound asleep in my room. My fingers hurt like crazy and smelled like latex the entire next day. The event was a long and hard one of standing around in heels all day. At least my next camera decision is going to be an easy one. Well, maybe not which brand to buy, but certainly to jump to a DSLR for video. Juggling two cameras and a wireless mic system around all day was not fun at all.

Highlight of the trip was playing with the Aflac ducks next to our booth.


And talking to Jim Quinn of OCC and seeing all the bikes they have built since I saw him last. I just couldn't wait to get out of the city and get home. But that didn't go as planned. Talk about hell. Let's just summarize (due to the lack of time for me to tell the entire story) with this one quote from Karlo that pretty much says it all . . . "I should have not played chicken with a truck." So in a nutshell we got hit by a tractor trailer and spent nearly 2 hours sitting on the GW bridge. Yeah THAT was fun. Not.

So we're back and just about to take off for vacation, to Maine, where there's no internet connection. How will I survive? Oh yeah, with my awesome Droid :-) Back back all too soon.

We Didn't Really Have Time For This

I tortured myself with the decision on whether or not to take off for the weekend. We had so much to do, on this, our only full weekend home in quite some time. I had a long list of house and yard chores, not to mention we were planning to do a metric century (65 mile) bike ride today. As always I try to cram too much stuff into any given day. So when a coworker asked us if we wanted to drop everything and go with him and his wife to a resort up in the Berkshires I was just frozen with indecision. Could we put our chores on hold? Would I be disappointed for not doing that bike ride? Should we just say "Screw it, we need a break?"


Well, we picked option #3 and took off Saturday morning. I'm so glad we did. We had a wonderful weekend of outlet shopping, wine tasting, donut eating, apple picking, hot tubbing, hiking, and leaf peeping. It really was a wonderful idea to vacation with another couple. It is the ONLY thing in this world that slows Karlo and I down. Instead of him being impatient with me at the outlet stores, he was happy to sit on a bench and chat with our friend for hours. Instead of race hiking up the mountain to try to cover as many miles as possible, we took our time and just enjoyed it.


The whole two days was just relaxing and fun. Despite us getting a taste of how nice it is to do that, I don't have high hopes that we can actually achieve this on our own. Our triathlon-per-day vacation is coming up. We'll see how much relaxing we do . . .

Caught red-handed eating a hot apple.

And speaking of vacation, we are leaving on Wednesday and, of course, we have one more business trip squeezed in between. Good heavens. I need to scoot and finish laundry so I can finish packing for two trips, again! To see more pics from this weekend, please click here.

Interesting Discovery

It’s been years that I’ve been complaining about being ‘allergic to work.’ Being in my office every day literally makes me sick. Almost like clockwork I start to feel nauseous right around noon time and then it just gets worse as the afternoon goes on. By the time I get into the car for the commute home I’m holding my head and miserable. All I want to do is sleep. This is why I always preferred to commute with the motorcycle. The fresh air always made me feel better, unlike the car ride that just makes it worse.

I have blamed every possible thing in my office for this problem. On the days that I blame the dust, I go crazy cleaning everything. I even hauled 10 years of accumulated stuff out to the dumpster one day in hopes a getting a fresh clean start. I blamed the dog blanket and toys and threw those out of my office. Next to go was my fake fish tank with the sitting water in it. Maybe mold was growing in there and mold is one of my biggest allergens. I was running out of things to blame and my daily allergy medications don’t always help this ‘work allergy.’ Seemed to me that retirement was my only hope . . . .

Until today when I ran into a coworker in the kitchen. He was cleaning out his metal water bottle and was complaining that the water was hot enough to kill the bacteria that might have grown from his water sitting in the container over night. "Overnight?" I thought, . . . I DRINK the water that is sitting in my plastic container just over night. I sometimes leave water sitting in there for days or even weeks on end. Of course I do wash it out with soap and water after several days of sitting so OF COURSE that must be safe, right?

Well, I got the pants scared off me when this coworker started to explain the dangers of plastic bottles, especially those that are not BPA free. I’m not quite sure what BPA is, but Lord knows my Dollar Store, 5 year old plastic mug was not as safe as it should be. Forget the head problems, I immediately felt sick to my stomach and marched upstairs to throw away my water bottle. I didn’t take one single sip from it today and guess what????? You got it, I have no allergy problems what-so-ever today. Bingo. I just may have solved a 15 year mystery. So if you’re using a plastic water bottle every day you may want to do yourself a favor and ditch it.