Anniversary Weekend

It started out with good weather on the drive down to Ocean Shores on Friday, and the dogs were well behaved.  Since we took over their care from my mother, Bonnie the poodle has always had anxiety in the car.  She usually pants and whines the whole time and doesn’t sit down, even in a 3 hour drive. (Jennie the Yorkie-Poo is very mellow, so she's no problem.)

But!!! after trying several things over the past two years to calm Bonnie, I think we may have turned a corner.  Now we give her 1/2 a Benadryl about half an hour before we leave and put her way in the back of the SUV behind the luggage so she cannot see outside; in essence she is like in a cave.  Her anxiety seems to have subsided a lot, because didn't hear a peep out of her the whole drive.  This is great for me too, because her panting and whining has always annoyed and stressed me out.

Traffic was good so we made it there in record time.  After a trip to the IGA grocery store, we stopped in at a local brewery and had a few beers.  We had never been there before, and it was quite the fun place.

Lots of beers on draft

I got to sit in this chair and drink my beer...it was surprisingly comfortable

Someone who missed out on the beer that afternoon

Tired from the drive (and the beer), we stayed in that evening and watched TV.  

Saturday, the weather was perfect for clamming and the clams were just waiting for us.  We got our limit within 30 minutes!  So fun!

Then the not-so-fun cleaning the clams, which takes longer than catching them.  Once cleaned, Hub cuts them up into different sizes, some for frying and the rest for clam chowder.  Then he freezes most for later (he did fry up some of the fresh ones at home on Tuesday).  We spent the rest of the day relaxing and I took the dogs for a long walk on the beach. 

For our super romantic (haha) anniversary dinner that night, we went to our favorite place, the Green Lantern Tavern in Copalis.  There I had my "go to" meal…A BLT (although I always get it without the L...I hate lettuce on any sandwich). Described on the menu as "10 slices of bacon with lettuce, tomato and mayo on sourdough," I usually only eat half and then have bacon for the next morning.

mmmmmm...bacon!

We always make our trips to the beach a 4 day trip and stay over on Sunday (mostly to avoid Sunday night traffic back to the Seattle area).  We had no interest in clamming that day, so we took a drive down to another beach about 30 minutes away (for next season so we know where it is in case the State doesn't allow clamming on "our" beach for some reason).

Since this was the last day of clamming until November, the beach was packed.  I have never seen so many cars and people.  

So many people, so few clams...those are all people in the background!

More cars than clams

As crowded as it was, I started to imagine people fighting over the clams like people at a Black Friday sale.   

Then we drove up to a “planned community” named Seabrook, which they started building about 8 years ago.  I have watched this place evolve over the last few years and some people rave about it for family vacations.   The first time I went there, it was kind of cute, but this time it was just so built up and crowded.

To be honest, it’s not my thing at all.  There are only a few restaurants and stores, not nearly enough to support all the houses they have built in the last few years.  But everything is "adorable" and "picture perfect."  No wonder its nickname is "Stepford of the Pacific Northwest."  I much prefer funky, unpretentious Ocean Shores with its bars and hotels and souvenir shops.  (And great IGA grocery store, can't forget that.)  

Anyway, the next day it was back to Seattle.  All in all, it was a really nice anniversary weekend.

Happy 25th Anniversary to my wonderful husband!  We laughed about what we would be doing on our 50th when I am 90 and he is 96...hopefully we will still be clamming! 

Patience

My leg is slowly getting better, but it’s an up and down process.  A few days ago, it felt pretty good, yesterday it hurt like heck, and today it’s better again.  Frustrating.  Some days I feel like I have a knot in my calf.  I have a prescription from the ortho doc for PT, so have a few sessions scheduled with a clinic near where I work out, starting on Monday.   Patience is definitely not my strong suit so by going to PT, I’m hoping to speed up the healing process somehow.   My trainer has me doing stretching and strengthening type stuff on leg days and yesterday, I told him that my workouts were starting to feel like going to to the dentist.  Necessary but boring and not fun.

My biggest problem with not working out HARD (besides missing my endorphin rush) is that I start to worry that I'm gaining weight.  I don't want too look too closely at "that," because I'll make myself crazy.   The honest truth is (according to my heart rate monitor), the difference between working out hard and working out moderately or even lightly is about 250 calories in an hour work out.  The calories in a candy bar or bag of chips.  Definitely not enough to make me gain or lose.  It's the food, baby, it's all about the food.  Calories in, calories out.  As for the workouts, at least I am still doing something, and not being sedentary.  

Next weekend is our 25th wedding anniversary (on April 21).  The hub and I discussed going somewhere special, like Harrison Hot Springs in BC or Las Vegas.  But I checked the razor clamming schedule in Ocean Shores and there is clamming April 20th through the 23rd.  We LOVE clamming and it's getting close to the end of the season.  We are part owners of a condo in OS, it was available, so the accommodations will be “free”!  It's only a 2-1/2 hour drive so very convenient.  We don't even need to get a sitter for the dogs.  So I think it was meant to be...next Friday, we’re off to see the sea.   

My tulips are finally starting to bloom, for a while I only had leaves.

Since we are gone next weekend, I hope the weather this weekend is better than last (it rained hard for 2 days straight).  I need to get out there to clean up and prepare my garden for planting this year’s tomato crop.  Another place I don't have patience...my garden.  I want it tidy and organized and I want it NOW! 

I hope everyone has a nice weekend...and that we have some SUN!

Music Memories

Quick update on my leg…I’m doing much better.  X-rays were taken and the orthopedic doctor says my knees look great.  No arthritis, etc.  The issue is muscular, as in a badly strained muscle in my calf.  So I’ve been stretching and icing, and still working out but doing a modified program on leg days.

I have always worked out to music and have many playlists based on what the activity is.  Even when I'm with my trainer, if there is no one else in the studio, I can put on my own music while we work out (I work out at kind of an odd time so often it’s just him and me).  I have a playlist that has my current favorites on it, but it’s gotten kind of stale because I keep forgetting to update it. Lately, the poor guy has just had to put up with hearing the same stuff over and over. He has a lot of patience and humors me, I think because I am old.  

Yesterday I was getting ready to work out and I noticed on my iTunes on my phone that there is a playlist called “25 most played songs.”  I didn't even look to see what was on it, because I figured since I’ve played the songs so many times, I must like them all.  So I took pity on Trainer Steve and figured whatever was there would be a change of pace for both of us.  Turns out that playlist included songs that I listened to before I even had an iPhone!   From way back when I got my first iPod, when iPods weighed more than an iPhone does now.   At first I was a little creeped out, because I was thinking, how does my iPhone know what I listened to on my iPod?  But then I realized it makes sense, because it’s iTunes on your computer that keeps track of how many times you play a song. 

We’re talking about songs from 2003!  Back then I was walking long distances frequently, sometimes 10 miles at a time, and listening to music made walking so much easier and enjoyable.   Then in 2004, we got Buster.  In his prime, between 2005 and 2012, he and I went on some epic walks. You’ve never seen a dog that could walk like he could and he was always such an enthusiastic walking partner!  It was our special time together, and I always listened to music while we walked. 

Music memories are so powerful.  Have you ever heard an old song come on the radio and suddenly, you were transported back in time and you know exactly where you were or what was going on in your life when that song was popular?  Some songs just touch you or even punch you in the gut.  So some of those songs on that “25 most played” playlist really brought back bittersweet memories of my walks with B.  

My current Facebook profile photo is a picture I took of Buster at the park in late October, when the trees were gorgeous red and the weather was perfect.  (I posted a similar one here soon after he died.)  The picture on the left is from one of those silly tests you take on FB.  In this test they proposed to turn my profile picture into an “art piece.”  I do a lot of these for fun but never post them on my FB because the results are usually stupid.  But this one I took a screen shot of the result because it really was very nice...that's Buster in the lower left corner. 

I realize I am at risk of sounding like the "Crazy Dog Lady," but I haven't changed my FB profile picture since he died in November because I’m still missing him a lot, and the thought of changing it seemed disloyal.  But it is getting better and I'm more at the stage of feeling wistful about him, rather than devastated.  I think this picture kind of reflects that feeling.

So I think the next stage of moving on will be to change my FB profile picture.  I just need to figure out what to replace it with.