Road trip

Danny and I went on an 8 day road trip. This is our first day back and we have been zombies today. I think you guys probably know how it is. You come off that high of being on vacation, and enter back into reality. I am going to have a busy day tomorrow, but I will do my very best to get an entry in on Tuesday- along with some pictures of how our trip went. I hope all you Oregonians are enjoying this beautiful weather.

Paint process

I am currently painting my parents bedroom. I am not done, but I wanted to show a few pictures of the process. I will put pictures on when I am done. I am going on vacation for a week, starting this Saturday, so I won't put the finished product on until the beginning of June.

Love the weather

This weather has been wonderful! I woke up early this morning and read out on my deck. It was so peaceful. I know it's been said before, but when the weather is nice in Oregon it is one of the most beautiful places to be. This weekend was pretty mellow. We went to a potluck picnic at Barton Park. We had a lot of fun. Afterward we went with a friend to Stepping Stone and had breakfast at 10pm at night. We stayed until a little before 1 am playing board games. Good times.

Past weekend

This past weekend was a good one. We went on a hike around Hood River, around the hills of Mosier. It was a great little hike. There was Balsamroot, which look just like miniature Sunflowers. Other plants include: Desert Parsley, Purple Vetch, White Yarrow, Blue Bachelor Buttons. Everything is in full bloom. I wrote a haiku.

The Gorge
Indelibly Etched
cornucopia of Life
Hills of majesty

We saw pigs run into the street on our way up. It was so entertaining to see the farmer attempting to round them up, and encourage them to go in the correct direction. The eventually got out of the street and ran in and out of the trees in the orchard. The pigs looked like they were having a blast.

As I was walking along the path I heard a frightening noise right by my foot. I jumped and screamed, and then looked to see what it was. It was a rattlesnake! Danny and I were not very smart about how we handled the situation. I just think we both were so caught off guard because we were not expecting rattlesnakes to be in the area. We stood around it and looked at it for a little while before we figured out it was a rattlesnake. Danny took pictures, and I just stood there still in shock. It was coiled up and we didn't think much of it. Now I know this is the position they are in before they strike. Man, I feel pretty stupid looking back. I also feel very blessed that nothing happened.

Danny and I are going camping in a couple weeks, and I know we are going to continue hiking and camping for many years, so I think it would be wise for us to educate ourselves on what to do when encountering different reptiles, animals, etc.

Mother's Day was fun. We got to spend it with both our moms at different times. It was a nice relaxing day, and both our moms seems to enjoy their day. I have to get back to work.

Paws

I went to an animal shelter today, Paws, in West Linn, to pick out a kitty because my mother in law, bless her pea pickin' heart (That's what my hick family says, I don't know what the pea pickin' is about) went to this animal shelter and found out they had kittens. They are a little over a week old, so they have to stay for about a month more, or so, but I guess we are coming into kitten season now.

I could really use a cat for some cheering up. To be perfectly honest I have been having kind of a tough time lately. I mean it's not tough all the time, but in spurts. I am in a twelve step recovery program and I am on my fourth step. If you know the steps, you will know that the fourth step is widely considered the hardest step (there are a lot of disclaimers I want to add to this comment, but I will leave it at that). I am not going to go into the specifics of it, but it's a long process to work on your fourth step, and there is a lot of pain involved in it. When you are finished there is freedom and a better understanding of yourself, and a lot of the history behind what makes you you, the good and the bad. But you have to go through the muck first. Well, I haven't reached the freedom part, and I am still in the muck. The freedom part comes with step 5.

Back to the animal shelter. There was one orange cat, named George, with cerebral palsy and he had no control of his muscle function and he was flopping around, and falling over, attempting to take himself from one place to the next. It broke my heart because he looked like he was suffering (but I found out he's a very happy kitty). I broke down and started bawling right in front of the lady. I could not stop crying for the longest time.

Shockingly, I wasn't that embarrassed. I was mostly confused at why I was reacting so strongly. It's an odd feeling to react so strongly to something and not even know why you feel the way you do. I am practicing accepting not knowing what's constantly going on with me emotionally. I have a feeling this too while take a while.

You have to see this cake

As I told you last night, it's Angie's Birthday, and one of our friends, Adri, is crazy about birthday's. She is amazing about the efforts she goes to to make someone's birthday magical. As you might have guessed she made the cake you see before you. The flowers are decorated muffins. She has a true talent for making fun cakes. I have to run, but I thought I would share the wonderful creation.

game night

Fun night tonight. We played games at the Lucky Lab Brew Pub. It was fun times. We had 10 people and we hung out for about 4 and a half hours and played games. I loved it. I am so happy to find people in my life who love to play games. Most the people were from Danny's work and they have such fun games that I've never heard of before. I am going to go to bed. It's my best friend's birthday tomorrow, and some friends and I are going to wake up early and make breakfast together, so I better get some shut eye, it's pretty late. Feliz cinco de mayo!

Kali the cat

I got a new phone, not new, an old phone, new to me. I broke my other one, so a friend let me have an old one of his. Anyway, I evidently can't send messages through Bluetooth onto my computer anymore. But I looked up her picture on their website. The pictures does not do her size justice. She is a Russian Blue and she is very sweet, but so large.

I also reached 200,000 miles on my car and I took a picture of the odometer, but that too is on my phone. It was a really exciting moment for me. The funny thing is now my car is starting to make a funny smell. That car has been so good to me. His name (yes, it's a he), is Isigio. He's a Geo Prizm, and he is wonderful. All I have ever done for that car is take it in for oil changes. Amazing. I am grateful for his service to me. Well, I better get to work.

check this out

I thought this was cool, so I put it on here. Pretty amazing. I don't know this person, I just read the article and put it on here, in case you were wondering.

"A design student made a battered old Skoda "disappear" by painting it to merge with the surrounding car park.

Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan), took three weeks to transform the car's appearance.

She created the illusion in the car park outside her studio at Uclan's Hanover Building in Preston.

The car is now being used for advertising by the local recycling firm that donated the vehicle."

This is an article from BBC News England

cat search update

I forgot to tell you, we went to another place, The Pixie Project to look for cats, but no luck again. It was a great place to look for cats though. They all had pretty good temperaments, but none of them were quite right. I am really going off of gut instinct here in finding the right cat and none of them have hit the spot yet. If you're wanting a cat fix or you want a nice adult cat, then I would highly recommend The Pixie Project. It's on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd on the East side of Portland.

The cats are all in one open room and you can just sit and hang out with them. There was just one girl that comes every once in a while and just hangs out there because cats make her happy. It was funny. There was a cat in there that had an eating problem (overeating) and when it came into the place it weighed 30 pounds! I didn't know they could get that big. She went to her food dish and had an eating session 5 or 6 times while we were in there. I felt bad for her, but she was pretty sweet. Actually I took a picture of her with my phone. I put her picture on here tomorrow.

Long time, no write again

Hey guys, I am just writing to write. I have been sick. Danny's keyboard is messed up, so I am going to keep this short. Oh good, it's working again. It's been glitching lately. I am going to write some tomorrow to fill you in on the weekend. It was fun times. Sometimes I get stressed out about not writing for a while and just have to jot a little tid bit down to make myself feel better.

Hola Diego! Danny just told me you still read the blog, so cool. I miss you man. I have not been practicing Spanish that much, hardly at all actually. I feel sad about it, but I am not really doing much to stop it. I will study Spanish again. I will, I will. I need to get your e-mail address from Danny so I can write to you instead of leaving you this message on the blog. Sorry to all of you who are not Diego :)