Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Let me tell you a little story of why I'm a baby. As an almost grown child, not yet a teenager, I spent enough camping trips in the White Mountains to not be afraid of bears. There were bear traps everywhere, some containing bears that we were able to oogle at, and signs on every other tree warning you to drop to the ground if a bear came. Act like you're dead and it'll think you're dead. Because of that, I was not afraid of bears. Just act like I'm dead and I'll be fine? Easy! No worries about being ripped limb from limb!

Until last week when a friend ruined everything. Everything, I tell ya! We were on a hike and got to talking about bears and mountain lions, both of which we have in Flagstaff. We were talking about various people we know who have seen both animals while on hikes or mountain bike rides, which made them kind of real to me. I had heard of mountain lions occasionally being in peoples back yards and bears being seen on bike rides, but no real firsthand experiences. All stuff read in the paper until my friend told me some stories. At the end of our hike, I didn't think I was scared or anything and still felt the same un-afraidness of mountain lions and bears as before.

Queue to a week later when I went on a run/hike with Vince while he rode his bike. After a while of exercising together, we split paths so he could go one way and I could go another. I was good for the first 1/2 mile, then realized I was all alone at the top of the mountain where I was most likely to run into a dangerous animal, it was stormy and dark and sprinkling, and I was totally going to get eaten by a mountain lion or bear. Calm down, I didn't actually see any animals, I was just scared. And was so sure one was stalking me right then. What am I even supposed to do if a mountain lion attacks me?! So I ran. And ran. And kept running. Which in turn kind of scared me more because I was wearing a rain jacket that got noisier the faster I ran. I'm not very good with loud noises, let alone one that's right next to my ear, and my heart-rate just kept accelerating.

Finally, I ran into Vince after a couple miles alone and started to relax. I laugh at myself now thinking how silly I was, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to run like that otherwise!

Anyways, here are pictures, a mixture of iPhone and my 'big camera'.

Before we started I made Vince take a picture for our photo album, and of course he had to mess around for 20 shots before I yelled and started to walk away saying, 'SCREW IT, I DIDN'T CARE ANYWAYS.' One of the shots he put a banana on my head and laughed like a five year old.

This was when I was alone, at the outlook overlooking the city, which you can't actually see. It started raining more and I hightailed it back to the car. 

Dark and stormy!

After the run with my favorite girl.

By the way Beth, if you're reading this, I don't blame you. Or maybe I secretly hate you now.

Food, meds, and a touch of embarrassment.

|| Beautiful lunches are fun. I didn't have any clean pyrex dishes and didn't have time to wash one before work so I put my salad in a large mason jar. Not very practical to eat out of unless you like dressing on the sides of your hands or a long fork, but it's practical for transporting salad and an egg.

|| There is something oddly satisfying about seeing your clothes hang dry. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I know I'm saving money and the environment one shirt at a time? More than likely it's the sight of all the pretty colors of my clothes in my living room.

|| Medicine sucks, and unfortunately I have a condition that can't really be cured by diet, meditation, or anything other than that medicine. I have to take it three times a day and sometimes it is incredibly hard to remember. More than anything, it's not that I completely forget to take it, but when I go to take it I can't remember if I already took it for that time period! I've started to say weird things to myself, like, 'You took your medicine at 1pm while you were feeding the fish you forgot to feed this morning.' It worked for a while, but now all the days/times I've done that are blending together and I'm back to forgetting. I've thought about getting a granny pill case, but I don't want to carry it around for only three pills. Any ideas? Maybe there's an app where I can push a button that keeps track of it? (Gosh, as I sit here typing this, I looked at my medicine bottle and thought, "Did I take the pill before I started this post like I meant to? Aggh!!"

|| I bought a planner a while ago and I love it. Thanks, Lisa, for the inspiration! I got the 8.5x5" Blue Sky planner from Target for $7.99 and it's the perfect size. I also bought a pretty blue/white paper clip instead of the boring black/silver ones.

|| I finally transferred all 30,000+ pictures from my MacBook to my external hard drive, and then to my iMac. I've stupidly not had them backed at all and I've been freaking out about it for ohhhh, a couple years now? They are now safe and sound and deleted from my laptop so it runs very quickly again! I also transferred all my music so I don't have to worry about losing it.

|| Husband, while googling a bookstore phone number to see if they have a video game: 'How do you spell Hasting's? Apparently I'm spelling it wrong. Oh wait, no, I was typing it into the youtube search box. That's why none of the stuff made sense."

|| I did something highly embarrassing the other day. I came home from school/work and told Vince about it, and he said if he had a blog it's something he'd blog about just because I make fun of him so much. (See above.) I admit I have more opportunities to make fun of him between this blog, Instagram, and Facebook, so now I'll embarrass myself for him: I put my underwear on wrong. I very rarely wear thong underwear, but the pants I was wearing called for them. Turns out, I put them on sideways and I literally did not have five minutes to myself the whole day in order to put them on correctly. Instead, I was slightly uncomfortable and just felt like an idiot. I texted my friend about it and the good news is I'm not the only one who has done this. Have any of you ladies done that? Please say yes and spare me the shame.