Big Sur

I really enjoy taking pictures of landscapes and objects with lots of texture and detail. So yesterday I drove to Big Sur to do that. It was a perfect day for picture-taking! Keep in mind that I have a Casio Exilim 7.2 mp camera, with very simple features and the zoom on it leaves much to be desired!! Hoping Santa will get me a Nikon D80 for Christmas! Here are a few pics:

Footprints

Heavy mist over trees

Tunnel vision

Natural archway at Julia Pfeiffer State Beach

Twin sentinels, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Beach vegetation with ocean backdrop

Flowers at McWay Cove

The fog was just rolling in and the contrast between sun and mist was beautiful.




McWay Cove in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park along Highway 1, about 40 miles south of Carmel. I love the details of the tree in the foreground.

McWay Cove..really loved the combination of fence, tree, rock and ocean. I thought it looked like a natural picture frame.



The contrast in textures here really caught my eye. This was in J.P.B. State Park...it was part of the foundation of a building that no longer exists. A bit of interesting trivia...the house that once stood here was built by former US House of Reps Lathrop Brown. It was torn down at his bequest as stated in his will. This is all that remains.

Unobstructed view of McWay Cove and waterfall.

McWay Cove from a different angle.

Closer view of rocky shore

Coastline along Highway 1.



Textured wall

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, entrance via waterfall trail to McWay Cove. This area was strewn with poison oak. There were even areas where it was hanging down from trees, into the trail. YEESH!




Beyond this beach grass is a nearly sheer drop to the ocean and rocks about 40 ft. below. The ocean is barely visible because the fog had rolled in. It was breathtaking!
I took a lot of pictures that day, which I will try to post at some point in later blogs. For now, I hope you enjoy these! :)

The Silver Lining

Today was a very trying day for me. I had a couple of customers from HELL. One lady had such a "holier than thou" attitude that I wanted to slap her! It was all I could do to keep my temper in check and remain calm. What I really wanted to do was tell her where she could take her bad attitude and shove it. Retail baby, gotta love it!

If it wasn't for my great staff, I would go insane. They keep me grounded and help me laugh off the loads of poop some people try to dish out to us. How can people be so uncivilized to each other? We are here to help people, not be their doormats. Common courtesy is like a "dead language" nowadays. I just don't understand it.

But there is a silver lining to all of this. I start my vacation on Saturday. One whole week of not having to worry about anything work-related. (Not really true, since my OCD will not allow me to NOT check on my people at least once a day.) I have nothing planned for my vacay, just need to get it out of the way before the busy holiday season starts.

WHOA, I just read what I wrote and I seriously think I need a change in career! I've become so immersed in my job that I have stopped enjoying my time away from it! How the heck did that happen?! OK, new resolution...(in mid-July)...stop and smell the roses, figuratively speaking. (I think roses stink.)

I think I will take a few trips out to Big Sur and start on bucket list #7...start taking more pictures to hone my photography skills. #1 needs work too. I'll have to track down the guy that processed my application for the place I'm getting and see if anything opened up in the area I want. Wow, I can think of at least five other things that I should do while on vacation...I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation just to recover. Oops, gotta go now...my OCD is calling and wants me to make a new list!

By the way, I'm still on the salad diet...hence the continuous ramblings! ;)

Fondue, anyone?

The other evening, we all headed over to a restaurant in downtown Sunnyvale called Rok Bistro. This place is amazing! It is a hot stone and fondue restaurant. I highly recommend it...but it is a little pricey. There were nine of us altogether, and the bill came out to just shy of $500. But it was so worth it!

The main courses are served on your own personal rock, that's right, a rock. It's actually a volcanic rock that is heated to 700 degrees in an oven for 6-8 hours. Your entree is seared on both sides for 30 seconds then placed on the rock and served. It then cooks on the rock until you decide to remove it.


We all chose to get the "hot pot" special, which serves two people. You get a soup or salad (guess which one I chose!), a cheese fondue, main entree, and chocolate fondue. The chocolate is Belgian (yum) and the variety of dipping assortments are divine. Ok, I cheated on my diet!!


I ordered portobello mushrooms as my entree, in trying to salvage my diet. It ended up being two large mushroom caps, no stems, topped with feta cheese, which I love. The only drawback was that they seasoned the rock with Himalayan crystalline salt. Needless to say, it was a little salty. The great thing about my dining experience was that I did not feel full after the meal. The courses are brought out one by one to give you a chance to let the food settle. By the time we were served the chocolate, I had resolved to buy a fondue set as a housewarming gift for myself. I am hooked!

Dietus Starvicus

Diets. They are the worst! Even the word "diet" gives me the chills. It's the death of the carefree consumption of yummy snacks that give you sugar highs until you pass out. Not that I've ever done that, I do have some self-control! This is just based on observations of other people (insert awkward throat clearing). Moving on!

I started dieting, AKA starving, about two weeks ago. Right around the time I posted my last blog. Coincidence? Nyet! I have not had the energy or brain capacity to put together two words, let alone a paragraph.



That's what eating CLIF bars and salads will do to you! Who invented this crap anyway?? It tastes like cardboard dipped in chocolate...artificial chocolate no less. A girl can't get a break! So I nosh on a Clif bar for breakfast and lunch, then I go home and make myself a nummy salad.



Don't get me wrong, I happen to love salads. But eating them everyday, really changes your demeanor. As in, I get meaner. HAHA.
But back to salads...I love the fact that just about anything can be added to it to make it tastier. I load my salads with all kinds of veggies. I used to smother my greens with dressing, but I have found that I prefer a nice vinagerette, lightly drizzled over it so that I can actually taste the food.


I still have my cheats though. I have one starbucks a day instead of 2-3 (crazy I know!), and I've downsized to a tall (that's the smallest size for those of you from another planet). Grande if I'm stressed that day. ;)




I also limit myself to one can of coke per day. I no longer buy the 20 oz. bottle, cans are 12 oz. and I rarely finish those. I try to drink water, but I have never really liked the taste, or lack thereof. Besides, there's water in coffee...no comments on that, Peanut Gallery...just let me have that one.





So, please disregard the loopiness of my blogs for the next...oh....two- three months. I will not accept all the blame, Mr. Clif and the salad monster made me do it! Suggestions for salad recipes would be greatly appreciated. :)

My Bucket List....so far

I've been thinking a lot about the things I want out of life and what matters most to me. Goals I want to accomplish within the next 6 months, year, decade. I've come up with a to-do list of sorts. I love lists. When it comes to lists at work I am very O.C.D. about getting tasks done, so I thought I would apply it to my life and see how far I get.


1) Move out. Huge goal for me to accomplish within the next month or so. I'll miss the loudness and chaos that comes with having a full house, but I'd like to have my own space where I can hear myself think.

2) Write a book and get it published. A lifelong dream of mine has been to create something and share it with others of like mind. Make my mark somehow. I've been wanting to write a book for years, but have never committed to doing so. Too many lame excuses for why I didn't have time.


3) Get my passport. That one's easy. I already have the pictures and application filled out. Just need to get my ass down to the post office and take care of it. More lame excuses.


4) Travel. I have been to more places then most people I know, but not enough places to satisfy my thirst for adventure. My passport expired a long time ago, but I would love to go to Canada. I thnk my first trip will be an Alaskan cruise, that way I can pass through Vancouver. But first, refer to #3.



5) Learn to cook. The running family joke is that I can't even boil water correctly. (Not funny any longer and soooo not true!) I believe the cooking will come hand in hand with #1. Fingers crossed!



6) Volunteer. I've participated with my company in the ACS relay every year and it has been very rewarding. I would like to start donating my time to a charitable cause now that I have a bit more free time on my hands. I am starting small by growing out my hair, which I plan to donate to locks of love. (Very easy instructions on how to do this, but you must meet the guidelines. If you are interested, visit this site: http://www.nexxus.com/locks-of-love) I plan on cutting my hair once it reaches my waist, I have about 4 inches to go!


7) Join a photography class or just start taking more pictures to hone my skills (or lack thereof). I am very interested in photography thanks to an ex-boyfriend who showed me a few techniques. Since then I have taken some pretty good (toot-toot!) and pretty awful pictures.


That's all I have for now. I'm pretty optimistic that now that I have it all laid out before me, I can reach most, if not all of these goals. Any POSITIVE suggestions are welcome. Negative remarks will result in a metaphorical kick in the ass and a nice birdie, in a positive way of course! Heh!

Life in Optometry

I've always believed that since change is inevitable in life, you should just roll with the punches. Man up and face it, adapt to it and move on. But when you lose a family member, no matter what kind of relationship you have with them, it no longer becomes a matter of adapting...it is more like swapping a lens for a clearer one, a harsher one.
My grandmother recently passed away. We knew it was coming, she had been diagnosed with cancer years ago. But it still shook me. I did not have a very close relationship with my grandparents. My father was in the military and we were overseas for 90% of my adolescent years. So I never really got to know them well. I "officially" met them when we moved to Florida during my senior year of high school. After that, we saw them during holidays and birthdays. When I graduated, I was so eager to experience life, taste the freedom of not having parental units around, that I flew to Hawaii for the summer to visit my older sister, Madalene. When it was time to go home, I chose to stay.
I eventually ended up in California. My grandfather passed away a few years ago, complications from a stroke. Lens swap. My grandma was the last living grandparent we had. I remember one year, I sent her a special journal which asked specific questions about her life. It was a way for her to chronicle her life so that I could know a little bit more about her. She wasn't too keen on the idea, so it was never used. In retrospect, maybe she didn't want that reminder that her time was short. I should have asked her how she felt about it, but it never occurred to me.
Now that she is gone, I find myself wanting my family around. My dad is in Florida, he stayed behind when my mom moved here a year ago, to take care of my grandma. He remains there to take care of her affairs. I haven't seen my dad in years...I miss him. Everyone misses him. We are all in California now, waiting for him.
So now that my lens' have been swapped I see much more clearly. I feel the need to rid myself of all the negatives in my life, start fresh. I've been living everyday, adapting to changes around me, but not making any changes of my own. I've lived in an opaque bubble, not looking too far ahead, just rolling with the punches.
I'd like to end this post with a quote that I find very profound. RIP grandma, you are loved.







Irene Leona Styffe





*Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.
Bruce Barton