exercise program

There are a lot of ways to encourage yourself to exercise. You can walk to get the mail, run along with a podcast (my favorite), go to the gym, or have an exercise partner that encourages you.

This is the best one I have seen so far. All you need is a pedometer and the ability to remind yourself over and over that you are walking to Rivendell!



It's brilliant actually. Those who like to sit for extended periods of time and read epic novels also could probably use some fresh air. Perhaps I will turn my program into Running To Rivendell and see how long it takes me.

Some of the distance goals:
THE LORD OF THE RINGS:

458 miles: Go from Hobbiton to Rivendell.

462 miles: Set out with the Fellowship from Rivendell to Lothlorien.

389 miles: Travel through Moria and down the Anduin from Lothlorien to Rauros Falls.

355 miles: Follow the path of Merry and Pippin from Rauros to Isengard.

484 miles: Follow the path of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli from Rauros to Isengard.

470 miles: Follow Frodo and Sam on the quest from Rauros to Mt. Doom.

517 miles: Ride with Gandalf and Pippin from Isengard to Minas Tirith.

786 miles: Travel with Aragorn from Isengard to Dunharrow through the Paths of the Dead to Minas Tirith.

578 miles: Ride with Merry and the Rohirrim from Isengard to Dunharrow to Edoras to Minas Tirith.

138 miles: Follow Aragorn from Minas Tirith to the Morannon.

120 miles: Return for Aragorn’s crowning from the Morannon to Minas Tirith.

1625 miles: Take the road home with the hobbits from Minas Tirith to Hobbiton.

• 535 miles from Minas Tirith to Isengard
• 693 miles from Isengard to Rivendell.
• 397 miles from Rivendell to Bag End.

467 miles: Follow Frodo to the Grey Havens and return home with Sam.

birthday!

My birthday weekend started off with the gift of Charlie taking the day off from work. Yay! Then he tried to top that by giving me a new camera that will hopefully help me with my horribly blurry photos. You can't tell from reading this blog, but for every picture you see there are another 30 that are different variations of blurry and I had to pick through them to find one that was good enough to publish here.

beautiful flowers and a card from mom mom and pop pop

There was an embarrassment of riches from family and friends. Thank you to everyone! Charlie cooked me meatballs as requested and I feasted on those.

mmmm basil

Then there was this cake. Besides being ridiculously complex and wonderful it was also tasty! Mona, your future in cake decorating is secure. Once you have made your own fondant you can call yourself a professional. It was very difficult to cut into it, but it just had to be eaten.

magnificent farmer cake

We spent the rest of the quiet night playing word games by the fire. Tonight will be yet another party with more friends out at my favorite restaurant. More meatballs for me!

Every year gets better than the one that came before.

Waffle Frenzy

Today was my turn to host the breakfast playgroup, and waffles were on the menu. Tasty blueberry waffles. It was three hours of batter, coffee, orange juice, and general mayhem. Interestingly the turkeys were the only children that were over stimulated. I covered them with a tablecloth and they stopped their frenzied peeping. There was a lot of red plastic cup stacking, basket carrying, and even a spirited rubber spatula fencing match. Much fun was had by all!

Elisa feeds the masses

With the cool autumn air the local spiders are keeping close to the house in the hopes of warmth. They have set up sentry areas at all doors and it is impossible to walk outside without getting a face full of web. For Charlie this is a nightmare. He is less than fond of spiders and has been known to notify me of their presence so that I can sweep out the front door before he exits to work. I took this picture on one of the back doors. They have a web on each side and they are huge! Please, dear spiders, keep catching mosquitoes until the first frost.

friendly neighborhood spiders

Lovely, lovely fall

First of all, happy birthday to Charlie's brand new niece! She was born this morning at 6.30am. I can't wait to see pictures because I'm sure she is cute as a button.

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It's a sunny lovely day today, and I think I'll continue my get-rid-of-stuff campaign. Yesterday I managed to clean out most of the shed. I love Craigslist, because later this afternoon some guy is coming to pick up the rusty tool cabinet that has been taking up space ever since we bought the house. Who would want a rusty old tool cabinet? Well, about thirty people responded to my craigslist ad within 15 minutes of posting. I also freecycled some hose reels that I don't use.

Just get this extra crap out of my life! Preferably before the rains start.


The turkeys are growing, and enjoyed their first salad the other day. After much suspicion they took a taste and realized that it was good. They are still quite skittish and don't like to be handled, but I am sure they will come around eventually.

seconds after this picture was taken, the turkey overbalanced and fell off the perch. Always good for a laugh!

Quilting Lessons

I am working on my very first quilt, and have finally finished doing the actual quilting of the top. Unfortunately I had no idea how to do the binding, and reading books was getting really confusing. Mom to the rescue! Here is her most comprehensive and awesome lesson in How To Bind A Quilt:

1) The first thing you do is cut all layers to an even edge.


2) On the first side, place binding strip on the back side, right sides together and pin in place right at the top of the side just to get it anchored. I match the edges while I'm actually at the sewing machine for the rest. Remember to extend the binding a couple of inches at each end to give yourself some maneuvering room when you make the corners. Sew the binding on side one. Quarter inch seam.


3) This is how side #1 looks with the seam done.


4) Now do the same on the side opposite to side 1. Then do sides #3 and 4. Again, give yourself some maneuvering room at the corners by extending the binding a couple of inches at each end. When you get to side #3, start sewing the binding right at the seam line of the opposing side (by my nail, not the pin:-)


5) Now, all sides have binding sewn in place. Turn the quilt over to the right side.


6) Now you can cut the extra binding at the corners to make a perfect square corner as it lies flat on your surface. Roll and fold over on an angle and pin the corners for the mitered edge. You will see that the quarter inch fold of the two side seams that is now part of the corner of binding will have to be pinned or ironed into place.


7) On one side begin by folding under a quarter inch on the binding to give yourself a finished edge and place the edge right on or slightly over the seam line . Pin in place on all sides. (You'll notice the corners form a natural "v" when you pin the sides down.)


8) When I start the actual hand stitching of the binding edge to the top of the quilt, I change the pins to perpendicular because it's faster and gives more control for hand sewing. Now just keep going with your "invisible" or "ladder back" stitch until you replace all the pins with stitches. The only other thing I would add is that I sew all the sides and leave the corners for last....out of habit. You may want to just charge through them as you sew around the quilt. Corners always seem to demand just plain fussing even when you pay attention to instructions. Fiddling solves everything!

the biz

You know you are a wife in the gaming industry when you try to gauge when your husband is going to come home from work by reading the forums.

Seems that they are in the last phases of transition.....nine-headed baby to be born soon! Other TF2 wives, I salute you.

turkey palace

somehow they still manage to look small

The turkeys recently have decided that they would like to fly. This didn't work very well in their previous kitchen-coop, as there was no top. I pinned a tea towel over most of the top, but had to leave room for the heat lamp. Freecycle to the rescue! A woman on the other side of woodinville wanted to get rid of an indoor dog kennel size large. It is the perfect size for baby birds, and has the added bonus of a tray that slides out for cleaning. And most importantly, a roof.

They haven't discovered their new stick perch yet, but I think that is only a matter of time. Height is their favorite thing.

mail!

And no matter how nice email is, how informative and quick and effortless, there is something inescapably lovely about postal mail. When I saw the handwritten envelope in the pile of mail, I saved it to open last. What fun, to get something in the mail! Thank you Mom Mom!

The Engineer

The next chapter in the birth of Charlie's project. The Engineer!

Fly, Fly like a chicken!

Monday was all about adult responsibility. I built two compost bins, and finally had the gutters professionally cleaned. Since we've owned the house I have spent time careening off of over-extended ladders and inching out over the lower roof claiming that I could, of course, clean the gutters myself. Of course! Of course not. We have a varied and wildly pointy roof, and there are gutters all around it. I have a 21 foot ladder and couldn't reach the highest part on the back of the house. So I hemmed and hawed and thought that perhaps with time the gutters would clean themselves.

They did not. So I asked a friend for a recommendation and ended up with Johnstons' Inc. They unfortunately don't have a website, but according to my invoice they have offices in Woodinville and Seattle, so should be able to serve downtown as well as the Eastside. They did my gutters for a mere $250, which was less than half of what I was afraid it was going to be. They also do windows and pressure washing, but I can reach my windows! So, if you need your gutters done call 425.486.5114. They make the appointment, come to your house and give you the estimate and if you like it they do the work right away.

Since we moved in there has been an undignified vegetative heap next to the shed in the driveway. I've added on with weeds and chicken coop cleanings, and just knew there would be black gold in there if I could ever get the damn thing heated up and composting. I finally found some pallets in good shape from a machine shop in Woodinville, and on Monday cobbled them together into two 4x4 bins. After some energetic pitchforking the heap was thrown in and with the next good rain it should activate it's microbial splendor.


While I was outside working the chickens got stalked by a neighborhood cat. Gladys attacked it while Marge took flight. She not only flew, she gained serious altitude and ended up on the front porch roof! I thought it was a fear-induced flight, but after Gladys sent the cat packing up the driveway, she cool as a cucumber leapt into the air, flew 50 feet, and made a fancy left turn and dropped onto the roof next to Marge. I had no idea they could fly that high, let alone with any control.