I Feel Like This Makes Me a Big Kid

I had a long list of posts to write about last night. 

Naturally they are all gone because I didn’t have a piece of paper within arm’s reach at the time.

Today’s Exploit:

I was very brave today.

I did something that I have never done alone before.

It was a big step for me in my kitchen experimentationalism, or something.

Anyway.

The thing I did.

I did it by myself.

For the first time ever.

I canned!

They sealed and everything, on the first try!

That was somewhat less exciting than I had hoped.

But the canning was not.

Yesterday I stopped at a truck on the side of the road with H. to buy some strawberries.  I don’t know if I have mentioned it before, but I live rather near the strawberry capital of Texas, and they make sure you know it.  They have a water tower painted like a strawberry, a huge sign saying “Home of the Strawberry Festival” and everything is painted green and red.  Everything.

So I got a flat of Poteet strawberries.  That’s a lot of strawberries.

I helped Tammy make some jam once, and I helped my dad make some syrup a few times, but I never did it by myself, and I was never in charge. 

So I looked up a recipe for Strawberry Preserves, disregarded it, and looked up instructions on what to do with the jars to make them seal.  

Then I gave up on recipes and tried to remember what we did to make syrup.

I didn’t have any dish washing gloves, that was a major setback. But I got some cool silicone tongs to make up for it.

I hulled 4 pints of the strawberries with my spring-loaded-super-duper-strawberry-huller from Aunt Sarah, and then I sliced them with my extra-sharp-and-kinda-scary-strawberry-chopper/slicer from Cupcake.

It took me about 20.462 minutes to do a million strawberries.

Then I added some sugar and left it to sit overnight in the fridge. 

Today I got out my steamer to my BIG pot, that I magically saved, and put my jars in it, and put my strawberries in my other pot to simmer.

When the jars were hot and the strawberry juice was no longer opaque I used my antique ladle, because it’s the only one I have, to add the preserves to the jars.  I sealed them and turned them upside down on a white towel, because that’s what Tammy did, and because I only have white towels. 

I waited and waited for them to pop to mean that they were sealed, but they never did.  So I checked and they were sealed, they just didn’t do the fun part. 

And now I have 6 jars of home-grown strawberry preserves, that may turn out to be strawberry syrup, but that’s ok because I made it.

By myself.

Aren't they pretty strawberries? They were the small ones, and therefore less expensive, but it also meant I got more of them. Yay

Making Rolls and Building Walls

I still hate intervals just as much as I did in high school. Yet I’ve convinced myself that I need to do them once a week. This better pay off in November.

Today’s Exploit:

I got to help with a building project last weekend. 

I went to Kevin’s grandparents house where I was force-fed ridiculous amounts of food and listened to a crazy-overwhelming amount of chatter. Everyone there likes to talk and the babies like to get their opinions in just as much, and there are lots of them. 

Glenda (Gramma) told me she’d teach me how to make “hot rolls”, which I’ve finally discovered are just dinner rolls. And Kevin told me I am required to learn this trick. And Dale (Grampa) made Kevin let me help with the framing for the addition on to their house. So I spent the weekend covered in saw dust, occasionally peeling potatoes, moving 2x4s and holding them steady, and sweating through my cloths just in time to go inside for a break. 

And then they looked at me like I was crazy when I offered to help with the dishes.

Oopsie

I just finished The Glass Blower of Murano. I am now fascinated by glass works and Italy. Amazing.

Today’s Exploit:

I had some awesome pictures of my buddies to post today. But then I let my camera battery die and the charger is trapped in the bedroom of the trailer. Maybe tomorrow?

PS Here’s proof that I ran, and ran, and ran up the horrible mountain.

And then I finished and couldn't sit down because I'd never ever get up again. Plus, Eli had something really important to tell me (Eli is hiding behind his mama).

The photos were taken by Yumay Chang for Evergreen Trail Runs.

The Magical Up-Hill Race Loop

Traveling messed up my sinuses. I haven’t been able to breathe properly since I got back.

Today’s Exploit:

I signed up for another race. Another half-marathon. 

I don’t know what I was thinking, but then, the last one wasn’t so bad...

I should have known better when I signed up for a trail run on a mountain. Even a mountain that I had run on before. A year makes your mind hazy and the hills don’t seem so bad and the elevation is just a whisper. When really the hills were nearly vertical climbs and the elevation means you wheeze while walking that flat spot and suffocate on the hills.

A recount, for future reference:

Mile 1: Ack! it’s all up hill. It never ends. Note to self: find more hills to practice on in the flat desert of South Texas.

Mile 2: I give up, I’ll never be able to keep up with Catherine. I need to catch my breath and PS the hill still never ends.

Mile 3: I hate mountains and trails and hiking and running, Oh, wait! I see a level bit of trail!

Mile 4: Oof. Forgot to eat on that monstrous hill I just climbed. I REALLY hope I don’t get a migraine. I have another 6 miles before I get to another aid station. (Lack of oxygen means it never occurred to me that I had the option of going back to the last aid station that was 1/2 a mile back.)

Mile 5: Well, I’m pretty sure I’ll be climbing for ever and ever and ever, but at least it’s not quite so steep. Shoot, I just got a blister.

Mile 6: I made a FRIEND! Yay! She’s doing better than me and she hasn’t run in a long time. This was her way to “get back out the door”. 

Mile 7: The three amigos passed us, and another lady caught us. We are now the three amigas following the three amigos. But we like their pace and we like walking up the hills.

Mile 8: Ooh! Cramp in the calf, I think I’ll walk a minute. Ooh! Cramp in the other calf. Stop to stretch.

Mile 9: We really are going to climb into the clouds. I think this mountain’s magical and our entire race loop will be up hill. PS the cramps are getting worse.

Mile 10: Aid station, woo hoo! And they claim it’s all down hill from here! They gave me a salt tablet and an orange slice maybe the cramps will go away.

Mile 11: They lied. I still have to go up hills. But now walking makes my quads cramp and running makes my thighs cramp. So I have to half shuffle and try really hard not to cramp and make myself fall off the mountain. 

Mile 12: I’m pretty sure that the 50 mile group is going to beat me in this race. At least it’s pretty. "Shuffle shuffle grunt (cramp) shuffle"

Mile 13: I see people! And the cow bells! Yay! The kids are there to give me high five, and I’m turning away from the finish, oh no! another cramp. Ok, it’s only 20 more steps, I can do this. CRAMP! ENTIRE LEG! AAAHHHHH!

I hopped across the finish line and had 5 people attack me to make sure I wasn’t hurt. And then I nearly got tackled by a 4 year old, he wanted to give me a hug and didn’t care if I was stinky and sweaty and salty and falling over on my own.

Amazingly enough, the only part that I wasn’t smiling and having a good time was that 4th mile when I had the migraine scare. The rest was torturously fun. And I got 5th place in my age group. Out of 8, but still...

The Madness of Running

I’m really regretting that decision to take the bag with the camera cord out of my car.

Today’s Exploit:

I spent the last 2 days reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.  It was fascinating.  I couldn’t put it down.  Not only was it an intriguing journey, it was packed with research and facts and runners’ stories.  

After the first day of reading I went out to try to implement El Caballo’s lesson.  Easy, Light, Smooth and Fast.  I focused on easy and light.  

I spent so much concentration on being easy I forgot to check my time until I turned around at 1.4 miles.  It only took me just over 10 minutes.  So I did some calculating on the way back, after a nice chat with the gate guard and a cleaning by the dog, to figure out about how fast I was actually going.  

10.6 minutes/1.4 miles = 7.6 minutes per mile! 

All that calculating slowed me down on the way back and I ended up with a second split of about 12 minutes.  

Even with a 2 minute bread to talk to the gate guard I ran 3 miles in 24 minutes.  

THAT HAS BEEN MY GOAL FOR YEARS!!!

And I did it without even thinking about it.  How is that possible?  I spent so many runs pushing and pushing to reach that time, and I end up doing it when I’m trying to run easy.  

GAH.

Anyway.  I like this book.  You should read it.  

The Results are IN!

I try to be polite and people think I’m laughing at them.  

Today’s Exploit:

So, my failed countdown ended 17 March.  It started out with a song and a bang.  And it kept on singing some maddening 80s songs that faded in and out as the dude with the speakers played leapfrog with us.  At one point it started to fizzle and that last mile seemed endless.  But then the last half mile was an all out sprint for the gates to popsicles and medals.  

I placed 184th with a time of 2:37:07.5.  Cupcake placed 183rd with a time of 2:37:07.4.  

Cupcake didn’t want to finish, but I told her if she didn’t I’d post all of her most hated and nerdy photos for everyone to see.  So she finished.  And we had popsicles and she wore her medal for 3 days straight.  She even slept in it, I think.  

I was going to post some pictures today, but my camera cable is hanging out at home with my newly-set-up sewing machine.  

Some day I will display all of my efforts of Thursday night.  I spent ages on making silly skirts.  Cupcake even wanted to wear hers to work, but I told her it probably wouldn’t wash well.  I also forced her to wear a nerdy hat because I thought it would be super sunny.  

PS.  The kids who cheered for everyone until they were hoarse, and then handed out medals were super-awesome.

My Hat is Clean

Countdown:  T minus one less day to prepare.

I started the Insanity workouts today.  All I did was the Fit Test and I’m exhausted.  I will be sore for the first real workout tomorrow.  

Today’s Exploit:

I was very proud of my dirty hardhat.  The one that was black with mud after my stupid mud shower.  The one where I had black hair and mud in my ears and up my nose and soaked through my coveralls.  

The one that made me stink for a week, no matter how hard I scrubbed.  

Well.  

Since I got here the roughnecks have been asking what happened, and why it’s dirty, and telling me how to clean it.

Today one of the roughnecks came over and asked if he could look at it for a minte.

He STOLE IT!

When he came back he had a nice, clean, white hardhat.

Now I can’t tell which one is mine.  And I look like a newbie.

Darn those guys for trying to be nice.  

I was proud of that mud.

Mud Bath, er Shower

Countdown:  63 days.  

Doctors: They give you pain meds you don’t want, then the antibiotic they prescribed doesn’t actually do anything and you have to go get a new one.

Today’s Exploit:

Yesterday the tool almost died again.  

After we tried fussing with the pumps and making 480,925 changes to the computers they made me change the pressure sensor again.

I checked with the driller, and he said he’d turn off the pumps and drain pressure from the pipe.  I went and got my coveralls, to avoid getting mud on my town clothes (aka the shirt Cupcake let me borrow) and got my tools.  

I took off the cable and the protector and checked once more with the driller that I could remove the sensor.  

He said it was ok, to go ahead.

I started turning the sensor very slowly, because I knew it would still have some pressure behind it.  Gradually it started leaking, so I knew it was almost free.  I made one more small turn, and BAM!

The sensor was gone and I was covered in mud and I had a 30.84 foot arc of mud shooting over my head.  

I took off my safety glasses and wiped them off. 

When I tried to put them back on I realized that the insides were coated with mud, not just the outsides.  

I didn’t have enough clean material on my coveralls to get it all off because I’d used it to wipe off my face.

When the arc didn’t decrease I ran upstairs to ask the driller if the valves were really closed.  He said that they were, and the flow would abate in a minute.  

So I went back down and watched for a while, until it was low enough that I could force a new sensor on.  I sprayed everything really well with ether-cleaner stuff and put my cable back on.  

Then I went and got a rag and went inside to see if it had helped.  That was when I discovered that I had black hair and a mustache.  

Once I was sure everything was back in working order, and had informed the Directional Drillers and the company man, I went to take a shower.  I spent the next hour and all the hot water dousing my head with dish soap and scraping at the mud on my arms with my nails.  

Follow Up: The Mountain

I have spent the last day an a half laughing hysterically at the divine comments Dana makes on this blog.

Today’s Exploit:

Follow up.  

The state of my poor car is not particularly impressive until you see the pile that I managed to cram into such a small space.

Let's pretend, for a moment, that the table represents the pieces I hid in my closet.

This was all in a CIVIC.
It makes me cringe to remember how many times I climbed into the trunk to get all this to fit.

My Amazing Work of Art: The Molehill

We have a cold front today.  The high is only 68*F.  The low is 42*F.  

Sadly it will be back into the 80s in about 4.2 days.

PS Happy All Hallows’ Eve and Happy Birthday to my cousin, Aly.

Today’s Exploit:

My masterpiece:

My back seat is overflowing, but I can still see my blind spot.  I'm just trying to be a safe driver.

Not so much out the rearview...

Packing a Mountain into a Molehill

I’ve been a slacker lately.  

Also, I’ve been too busy to find something funny to write about.  And when I’m not too busy I fall asleep in my chair.

Today’s Exploit:

I went to Oklahoma City one last time.

I had to pack the last few items I left at that apartment and clean the floors and make sure none of the counters had egg yolk cemented to them.

Just kidding.  I’m good at cleaning up the egg yolk before it turns into cement.  Mostly I had to pack and vacuum.  

First I pulled everything from the rooms into the living room.  

Then I covered my eyes and went to find my vacuum so that I could procrastinate the packing part.  

I vacuumed the two bedrooms and the kitchen and the dining room.  

I took a load of things to the Salvation Army while Starla was still empty and went to the store for lunch and Swiffer scrubbies for my kitchen and bathrooms.

After I had lunch sitting on the newly cleaned dining room floor, while shielding my eyes from the pile that was in the living area, I got out the scrubbies and made those floors squeaky clean.  

I was still trying to avoid the hill in the living room, so I borrowed a dolly from the office and took my desk to the dumpster.  I got there just as a nice man was driving by looking for salvageable items.  He liked the desk, so I helped him pack it into his truck.  

When I took the dolly back to the office, I also took a toy dolly for the office manager’s daughters.  Because it hadn’t been out of it’s box in at least 9.72 years.  

Then the only thing left to do was face the mountain.  

I went back inside and nearly cried.  

Then I decided to be tough and take even more stuff to the Salvation Army.  Cause I drive a Civic.  Only so much junk will fit...

The Salvation Army guy was really excited about the vacuum.  

After that I went back, took a deep breath, and started toting stuff down to Starla.  

It was super-engineering to organize all that stuff to fit economically into a small space.  

It was a work of art.

I couldn’t see out the back window.

BUT I DID IT!  

And then I turned in some keys.

They Sent the New Guy

I think someone stole my shirt.  A dirty, muddy, sweaty shirt.  

Gross.

Either that or I lost it,  which is probably more likely.  I just can't figure out when it happened.


Now I’m down to 3, which means laundry every day. 

Today’s Exploit:

I got a new trainee.

I don’t think this one had ever seen a rig before.

And sometimes he gets completely caught up in an idea that really has no bearing on this job.  And won’t let it go while I try to tell him something important.  

Also, he’s a foot taller than me and big and scary.  So I can’t yell at him to listen.

Not really.  

But he is tall.

Mostly I try to answer his questions briefly and then go back to what I was trying to explain in detail to begin with.  

I’m not really sure what to do with him.  Mostly they send me people who have been on another rig, with someone who knows what they’re doing.  So they already have an idea of what is important and what can be left for later.  

I don’t know if I’m the best teacher...

I hope he’s getting the idea.

I Taught Her Well

I got my pumpkin.

It was really hard to find one that wasn’t perfectly spherical.

Today’s Exploit:

I had to teach my sister how to use her blog again.

And this time I didn’t give in and fix it for her.

I sent her instructions, then I gave her instructions through Skype.  

Then she yelled at me and told me she wasn’t going to do them.

But I held out and was patient.

And she eventually got it.  And she’s really excited.  And...she knows how to fix her own blog!

My little sister is getting all grown up...

Sleep Mode: A Baffling Experience

I finally read those dragon and wizard books by the scary octopus lady (I still equate the name Ursula with the evil witch from “The Little Mermaid”).  The ones my mom told me to read about 15.2 years ago.

A Wizard of Earthsea

The Tombs of Atuan       

The Farthest Shore

-Ursula K. Le Guin

I also just found out there are 3 more in the series.  Time to go to the bookstore...

Today’s Exploit:

Sometimes I wonder about the roughnecks I work with. 

Half of them are super-smart and I can’t hold a candle to the things they know.

But then I meet the ones that I rather doubt could find the on/off button on a computer without help.  

Yesterday I got a call saying that the computer I have on the rig floor wasn’t working.  

Me:  Hello?

RN:  Your computer isn’t working.

Me:  Ok, let me check that it’s still on the network.

RN:  The what?

Me:  It’s still communicating, you’re sure it’s not working.

RN:  Nope, it’s just a black screen.

So I walked up the 48 stairs to the sweltering doghouse.  I trudged over to where 3 guys are standing around a blank computer looking stumped.

I touched the mousepad and turned around to go back to my box.

RN:  Wait, what did you do?

Me:  Nothing.

RN:  Let me see your fingers.

Me:  What?

RN:  I want to see if you have a magnet there, or something.

Me:  The computer just went to sleep mode.  All you have to do is touch the mousepad or press a key.  

RN:  Wow, I thought it was broken!

Just Another Number

I made Balsamic Chicken Alfredo.

Yum.

Cream and butter and Parmesan and Balsamic vinegar.

Today’s Exploit:

I was fighting with my computer when Tony came into the box.

Ryan was sitting on the bench watching me alternate between sweet-talking and yelling at Betty-Sue.  He thought it was hilarious.

Tony:  I’m going up to slide.  Also, Hector wants your number.

Me:  Nope.  Come on, buddy.  You can do it.

Tony:  That’s it, huh?  Just nope.

Me:  Just nope.

Tony:  Ok, I’ll tell him.

Later he came back and told me that Hector was surprised when Tony said I declined to give him my number.  

Tony:  I think he was surprised I actually asked you. 

My thoughts:  At least it was a little better than asking him to deliver a note.  Still...

I am glad he didn’t ask me directly.  I have a hard time saying no to people.