Is anyone still in here? Hellooooooo.

Just wondering if anyone still comes around. I confess to not keeping up with blogs very frequently these days. I sure as hell don't do much on my own blog.

Been slowly being my real non-anonymous self out there on the internets here and there. Including a yearlong foodie project which I will be posting on the low sodium blog on a roughly weekly basis. One new recipe (or an old one converted to low sodium) per week. That is not very exciting, but hopefully will be helpful to people who need to eat a little less salt and still want to eat well.

Happy New Year to all of you that are still out there reading this.

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead (Sort of)

Looks like Sunday alcohol sales will be legal in Georgia, at least in some jurisdictions that actually allowed a vote on the matter. Finally! But not everywhere. In my area, we were not given the opportunity to vote for or against (so I boycotted the election and didn't bother voting - I'm not going to go out of my way and wait in line to answer a one question ballot on SPLOST). I will reward forward thinking and good behavior by going out of my way to buy ALL my beer and wine in those jurisdictions that allow purchases on Sundays. Too bad my county didn't bother putting this on the ballot, but I won't have to drive very far to the nearest city or county that did.

My Obligatory "I'm Not Dead" Post

Just thought I'd mention it, since I haven't posted in two months.

In the meantime, I had fun at the Dragon*Con Parade on Labor Day weekend...



...and Dragon*Con night at the Georgia Aquarium.



Georgia Tech football was really fun for six weeks, and then not fun at all the last two. And guess who we're playing for homecoming next week? *gulp* I can narrow it down for you - it is an ACC game and the opponent is undefeated. At least it is a night game and we'll all have a good time until kickoff. Wonder how long I can keep my buzz going?

While I'm being all productive on blog updates, I also put something up on that other blog I started (and have neglected for two months) as well.

I think PDM and I will probably do another mini-vacation around New Year's Day that is within 5-6 hours driving distance of Atlanta. Any suggestions? Would prefer to be near a state park or some other natural place where we can do a few winter day hikes. Last year we did northeastern Florida (Amelia Island) and had a good trip. The beaches were great (and deserted) but we would also consider going north to the mountains as well.

That's about all I've got for now.

The Photos Speak for Themselves

These are all from our last full day on vacation and were taken in the subalpine region near Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. Lets just say it was a terrific vacation. We probably crammed way too much into one week. Drove 1300 miles. Hiked 36 miles. Had some wildlife encounters (including multiple bears).

Dealing with that first week back to work is always the worst, although a light schedule and my fellow physicists made it easier this time. We had a lot of adventures. Great times!

It's Always Something...

Now that I can breathe a sigh of relief about the national parks being open during my vacation, I found an even bigger problem with my travel plans: SNOW!!! Since the trip is days away, I started checking trail reports. I did not anticipate that nearly every trail I want to hike would still be covered by a thick layer of snow in August. Apparently the Pacific Northwest got record amounts of snowfall last winter, which has failed to melt in the usual timeframe. The higher elevation trails are either impassible, impossible to reach because the roads are also snowed under, or both. Lower elevation trails can be challenging due to fallen trees and high flow creeks and streams due to melting runoff. The net result will be that we have to modify where we visit and will probably not get to do nearly as much hiking as I had hoped for. PDM might prefer this arrangement, but I am disappointed that I won't get to walk through an alpine meadow filled with wildflowers and surrounded by beautiful mountains (unless I can find one that isn't under several feet of snow).

I am also a bit concerned that with far fewer places to spread out, the crowds might be much larger than what we'd prefer (we would rather not have ANY company on a trail other than plants and wildlife of the type that doesn't eat people). Still looking through my books and guides for creative alternatives, and hoping that our innkeepers will be able to point us toward paths less traveled, or maybe the park rangers will have some suggestions. But I am still astounded that my August vacation plans are all shot to hell because of snowpack. That just amazes me - and never crossed my mind when planning this trip.

High Anxiety

So.... we are going on a vacation in about a week. The plan is to fly into Seattle, then split time between North Cascades National Park, Mt Rainier NP, and Olypmic NP. All of which will be CLOSED if the idiots in charge of our government can't get their shit straight by August 2. I am trying not to freak out, but every day that passes without any hope of an agreement sends my nervous system into overdrive. We have a lot of money tied up in a vacation that may need quite a bit of modification on the fly. NOT what I had in mind when I planned it. We had briefly considered returning to Canada to see the remote parts of Jasper, and now I am wishing that is what we decided to do. It would be far less uncertain. Yes, I know the general area we are traveling to is beautiful, and there should be some state parks and other alternatives, but really, we should be able to just look forward to the trip instead of getting that awful sinking feeling every time we think about it. I have enough stress in real life and on the job. I don't need vacation anxiety. I really don't. (And yes, I realize that far worse things will happen if an agreement is not reached than us not getting to do what we want on vacation. Just another reason why this needs to be resolved by level headed compromising! This is not rocket science - raise income AND cut spending. They need to do both. Duh.)

Brain Fog, and Other Excuses

I haven't been around the blog much during the last few months. There has been other stuff going on. LOTS of other stuff. Here is my list of excuses:

1) Work - busy days, long hours. Frankly, I don't want to look at a computer once I get home some days. Been there, done that all day, too tired to care.

2) Summer is peak gardening season. This year I declared all out war on the monkey grass that we inherited when we bought this place. It might have seemed like a good idea in 1965, but monkey grass spreads all over the place, including our "lawn" which is mostly a collection of stuff that is NOT grass of any sort. So around Memorial Day weekend, I started ripping out huge beds of monkey grass and replacing it with nice plants that mostly stay where you put them. This coincided with the onslaught of perpetual heat waves, so I had to get up early to do this and it was still pure hell. I also upset a bunch of yellow jackets who had an underground nest in one of the monkey grass beds and got stung. They got blasted with Raid. I win.

3) Lots of doctor visits and tests. I've had some hearing loss and tinnitus in one ear since last October, and ignored it until April, when I started getting vertigo. That was scary and demanded immediate attention. The good news is that I don't have a brain tumor (they did an MRI to check). The bad news is that I have something called Meniere's Disease. They don't know what causes it and there is no cure. Awesome. Anyway, the primary method of managing symptoms is a low sodium diet (<2000mg, which is less than one teaspoon of table salt). Which brings me to #4...

4) Learning how to cook all over again. Almost everything in our standard repertoire of meals has too much sodium for me to eat. So we had to start nearly from scratch. Adapting some recipes (with mixed success) and making new stuff from some new low sodium cookbooks takes more time than we used to spend on meal prep. This diet also greatly limits where we can go out to eat, so we are obligated to do more cooking at home, and much more work is involved. Nearly everything we eat now is fresh, frozen, or dried. NOT canned, cured or processed. If we want sausage, we have to make it ourselves. Ditto for pizza - we have to make that from the dough up. Have to use dried beans, not canned (there goes spontaneity). It is really amazing how much sodium there is in EVERYTHING. I have become quite the label reader. Even cheese is a problem! Bacon, sausage, pickles, olives, cheese, salty snacks, canned goods, soups (unless homemade), fast foods (including my beloved chick-fil-A), breads, condiments, soy sauce, and most common snack foods - all on the bad list.

5) Not feeling well - vertigo takes it out of you. Ditto for stress and migraine headaches. Some days I come home and go straight to bed. Most of my symptoms have improved with the low sodium diet (the hearing loss seems permanent), and I am losing weight and feel better overall. But I still need to crash about once a week due to whatever.

6) Other interests - been doing some photography stuff (finally getting my last vacation shots - like the one with this post - processed and posted on Flickr), reading (not as much as I would like), catching up on our backlog of DVR stuff, vacation planning (happening soon, and we are not ready yet), and I've already mentioned the garden projects.

7) Hanging out other places on the internet - I started a separate blog about the new low sodium lifestyle, and also joined Google+ (both as my very own non-anonymous self). So those are dividing my attention. If any of you are on Google+ (other than the two of you I already know about and have in my circles) let me know in comments or email me - I am fermicat at both gmail and yahoo.

8) This is not really an excuse for not blogging, and maybe it is a result of the valium I have to take to "suppress my central nervous system" in an attempt to calm down the vertigo, but I am turning into a complete airhead. Absent minded doesn't even begin to describe some of the stuff I do now. It is almost comical. But also kind of sad. I used to be fairly sharp. Now... not so much. And kind of clutzy as well. Running into walls, falling UP stairs, etc. Not fun, and a bit embarrassing (and bruise-inducing).

So... in a nutshell: work, monkey grass, medical tests, learning to cook from scratch, feeling crappy, doing other stuff, being myself on the internet for a change, and brain fog are my excuses for not doing much blogging. How about you?

Photo info: A flock of seagulls crosses the rising sun at the beach. Amelia Island, Florida. Aperture f/8, 1/400 sec exposure, 55mm focal length. January 3, 2011