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2009 Walk To Cure Diabetes in Monterey

October 26, 2009 By meleighs Leave a Comment

Over the weekend I participated with my coworkers, friends & family in the Bay Area JDRF’s Walk to Cure Diabetes in Monterey. It was a grueling 2-mile walk along the coast at Lover’s Point – oh, the agony! Oh, the pain! Our little team of 5  fundraisers raised almost $2,000 – I can’t wait to hear how much was raised at this walk, and the other 4 walks the JDRF held over the last few weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area. See, finding a cure for Type 1 Diabetes is important to me – my sister has been living with this chronic illness for over 35 years – most of my life.

I’m proud to have been a part of this Walk – and looking forward to participating next year!

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Daylight Savings Time, 2009

October 13, 2009 By meleighs 2 Comments

I’m sitting here in my office listening to the rain on the roof – our first big rain of the season, looking out the window into the darkness thinking “when does Daylight Savings time end this year? It’s really dark outside.” It’s funny how fast the days go by sneaking into fall & winter – dark mornings get longer and longer – I, with my internal alarm clock, have been setting my electronic one “just in case”.

For another 18 days the mornings will be staying darker just a little bit longer – and then, November 1st we will set our clocks back and get an extra hour of sleep.  Good news for those celebrating Hallowe’en or Samhain! Either an extra hour of celebration or an extra hour of sleep. Either way, I always love the day we set the clocks back, it almost feels like we get to go back in time, just a little bit.

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In the blink of an eye

July 17, 2009 By Melissa Leave a Comment

Wow, 4 months gone by, just like that. So much has happened – and yet so little – and yet so much – more on that later. I’m in the middle of updating my WordPress, and then will be revamping the blog. Stay tuned!

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They say March Winds bring April Showers

March 4, 2009 By Melissa Leave a Comment

But we’ve already had a hell of a lot of showers in February and into the beginning of March – I’m hoping March Showers are going to bring April Sunshine and a yard full of flowers and budding vegetables! I’m planning to plant some herbs – Basil, Thyme, Cilantro, Parsley, maybe some Dill? My silly broccoli is getting taller but not bigger, I’ve started some new. My carrots are finally turning into carrots, which is exciting – and I think I want to try squash again. Hopefully the snails will leave my garden alone this year, I’m going to put out some beer, I hear through the grapevine that snails get into it and can’t get out. I just have to not tell my neighbor what it is, he’d probably try to drink it.

The house has gotten a facelift – first of all, the outside walls had a bath. Thank you Steve! He also shampooed the carpet, bought me a new gas stove, installed a gently-used washer and dryer (hurray for laundry done at home!!!), did a crapton of garden prep, hedge trimming, and laying down of grass sod. All in all, it’s looking pretty damn good. Feels good, too. Aaron comes to visit for a week soon, which I can’t wait for – I’m going to take a couple days off and hopefully the weather will be nice and we’ll get out and do some things we haven’t done on previous trips.

Definitely looking forward to spring this year! It promises to be a good one.

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35 and counting

September 11, 2008 By Melissa 2 Comments

So, I turned 35 on Monday. My sister tells me that makes me “officially in my mid-30′s.” I’m pretty sure she told me that last year, and the year before that she told me it was “the start of my mid-30′s.” I’m pretty sure she’s just giving me shit. That’s all right, she’ll always be almost 7 years older than me, so when she’s starting her mid-40′s, I’ll still be in my mid-30′s. Anyway, it was quite an enjoyable birthday. I started celebrating on Saturday by getting my hair done at The Platinum Lounge, which I highly recommend. Sola did my hair, and I absolutely love it. First time getting my hair professionally dyed (well, second, but the first time was sub-standard, so I’m not counting it.)

Monday night after work I had dinner at Christine and Drew’s house, we had some delightful tacos y burritos. Christine marinated the meat in Coca-Cola – it was quite tender and delicious, and didn’t taste like Coke or anything. We then watched “Son Of Rambow“, which was very cute and funny. Good for kids and adults, especially adults with a sense of humor about the 1980′s (which is, of course, anyone who grew up in them.)

What you see there is the meat, grilling, and the taco fixin’s getting fixed. You have to click the images to see that my loving sister made salsa from scratch. DELICIOUS. After dinner, during the movie, we enjoyed some delicious cake. No lie.

In add ition to having a delightful day, I decided that I’m going to make some positive changes in my life, including, but not limited to, being more out going with new people. I’m going to have the best year yet, and all the rest to come will be even better.

Thanks to all my friends and loved ones that made the day special: Aaron, for being the first to wish me a Happy Birthday (called me at the asscrack of dawn before heading to school for a ridiculously long day) Mike and Sam, for calling me before I went to work to do the same, Cary for calling me at lunch, Christine & Drew for a lovely evening including homemade dinner and cake and contributing to my new ‘do, Sophia, for getting me ANOTHER cake from Gayle’s Bakery (a-fucking-mazing chocolate mousse cake), Cass, for trying to call, even though I hadn’t given her my new number, John for the card and the dinner yet to come. It was a very good day.

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In which I dream of loss and frustration

September 5, 2008 By Melissa Leave a Comment

In this dream I returned to work after a 2-week vacation, but the job I was returning to was as a department manager at Fred Meyer, which in reality is a job I left in 1999. When I arrived, as is usually the case when I dream I return to this job after an absence, I was wearing the wrong clothes. They had had a change in the work attire policy while I was gone, and I was not made aware of it. In addition, there were some drastic changes made that I was unaware were happening, in the form of a remodel of the department. At one point in the dream, I realized that I had received notification, but had forgotten about it.

Part of the way through the day, I decided to run home and change, so that I would be in uniform. At this point I hopped on my shiny new blue motorcycle, and headed out the mountain road to my house. Now, to get to my house, I had to ride along a long, rickety, winding wooden walkway of sorts, on either side of which was murky green water. I was very nervous about this, and slowed down to a crawl. I eventually went so slow, that I fell into the water, trying to hang onto the bike with my left hand, and my large, empty purse with my right. I managed to pull myself out, along with my purse, but the motorcycle was already several feet under the surface of the water, and I was unable to save it. I was happy, though, to have saved the purse, maybe it wasn’t as empty as it seemed? It seemed like that was pretty important to me. I walked the rest of the way home, wet and miserable, planning what I would need to do at this point – call work and let them know I wouldn’t be back today, call the insurance company, arrange to have the bike retrieved, if that was even possible.

I arrived at home, which was little more than a shack, opened the door, and there was my boyfriend, unemployed, unwashed, unmotivated, (and unwelcome, I might add – the person standing there was the man I was with when I first moved to Alaska.) Rather than helping me deal with the situations at hand, he added to my feeling of unease and frustration.

All aspects of this dream point to my own lack of self-confidence.

Filed Under: Dreams, Life

We’re all getting older, aren’t we?

August 26, 2008 By Melissa Leave a Comment

I just found out yesterday that the current mayor of Santa Cruz is someone I went to school with. We were never friends, but I remember him from as far back as elementary school. There’s a picture of him on Wikipedia, and he looks just like he did in high school, only older. I guess I’m the same. I had a dream last night about people I used to know, some of them looked the same as they did back then and some of them looked very aged. I’m not sure if that means anything.

Filed Under: Dreams, Life

A delightful week

August 11, 2008 By Melissa Leave a Comment

Had a great week with Aaron. He arrived on Monday evening, I was able to go straight from work to the airport to pick him up, and then home. Work was very generous with me throughout the week, I had three out of four afternoons off while he was here (against work I’m going to do after hours this week) and we were able to hang out a lot. Tuesday I came home and we just relaxed there. For dinner we roasted a chicken, had some brown rice and fresh spinach. Went for a lovely walk on West Cliff on Wednesday, then saw Pineapple Express. It was funny. The crazy guy sitting next to us that was repeating everything that was written on the screen or said during the previews was not, however, very funny. I was glad when he wandered off. Thursday I worked all day, but we watched Into The Wild that night and had a delightful chicken curry for dinner. Friday we went out to Wilder Ranch and took the coastal trail, walked about 3.5 miles – I got a little sunburned, as I am incapable of remembering to put on sunscreen. Stopped at Upper Crust for a slice of pizza, then came home and made tortellini, salad and garlic bread for dinner. Saturday we went to Monterey, walked on the pier and talked to the Sea Lions (I’m a sucker for wildlife) and thought about walking down on Cannery Row, but it was a little too busy. We went for a walk just after sunset, down to the cliffs near my house. Had Thai for dinner from my new favorite place, Star of Siam.

We don’t have much time together, but we try to enjoy the time we do have, whether we are hanging out at home, or out and about. He’s heading back to school now. With any luck I’ll see him again in November, if not, it will be December/January.

Filed Under: Life