Home, Home Again

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” - Lin Yutang

I'm back home from California.  The amount of stuff you have to deal with when you come home from a vacation is a real deterrant to going in the first place, but I'm getting through it all.

One of my last outings in California was a hike in Riley Wilderness Park.  Anyone who has watched rich women behaving badly in Real Housewives of Orange County may be familiar with the area, it is just outside Coto De Caza where that show took place.

I went there, because I had never acutally been there before and most of the trails were listed as easy with only one listed as moderate.  Apparently, my definition of "easy" is much different than theirs, considering much of it was fairly steep hills.  The best part was trying to get my extra-large, less than agile body across a small creek with no bridge.  It wouldn't have been so bad if the sides hadn't erroded away making the banks at least twice as wide as the water was.  The long jump is definately not my sport.  But I made it with a small splash and a lot of mud, but there was no one to see my ungraceful bound so it never happened, right?

After wheezing and panting up a hill more vertical than horizontal, they were at least kind enough to provide a bench on which to die. On the way down the other side, I came to a fork where one way took you to more trails and some "scenic view" spots, and the other took you back to the parking lot. I'm sad to say, I took the second. My back and knees don't do well on hills, especially when schlepping many pounds of camera equipment around with me.

But I enjoyed the shortened walk on a beautiful day and leaving early put me in the path of the cutest squirrel (or maybe a chipmunk?) trying oh so hard to tug some potential nest bedding out of the dried mud and having very little success. Way too cute for words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Target

"Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain." - Doug Coupland

Yesterday, I went to Shaw's Cove in Laguna Beach.  I grew up here, but I don't think I've ever been there before.  Like 1000 Steps, you have a long staircase to traverse to get to the beach (58 steps, with camera gear, ugh!).  Its a small cove often used for scuba classes but I was mostly alone and company was few and far between.  It was a very low tide so a perfect time to check out the tide pools.

 

 

Today, I indulged in a couple of my Orange County favorites. First stop, A's Burgers for some fried zucchini with ranch dressing and a root beer. These are not your ordinary fried zucchini. A's slices them long ways and they are long sticks of fried gushy goodness, dripping in ranch.

Conveniently, the second is right down the street.  I love to go to the jetty at Dana Point Harbor.  It's so peaceful and usually attack free.  Except this time.  I took my yummy zucchini and went out to the jetty to sit on a bench and watch the waves.  I was just about to put a zuccini in my mouth when a sea gull swooped down and tried to steal it from me!  Right out of my mouth!  Bonking me on the head with it's wing for good measure.  Cheeky bugger!  It didn't get it, but at that point I didn't want it any more so I threw it into the air and the bird caught it before I could blink.  Wow.

Then, suddenly, there were two gulls.  Then four.  Then seven.  And more coming.  Ummm.  Yeah.  I finished my zucchini in the car.

California Here I Come...

"You can't go home again" - Thomas Wolfe

I'm off to California to visit my parents.  It's nice going home again, visit my friends, places I used to hang out.  And Southern California is a landscape photographer's nirvana.

It was overcast and rainy my first day, Saturday, but stormy weather always offers stunning sunsets if it clears.

 

Sunday morning was cloudy and gray.  With visions of fog shrouded sea shots, I headed for the San Clemente Pier, but not my luck.  Instead of fog, I just got overcast gray.  But the sun did peek out a few times.   
 

Southern California family activity

 

San Clemente Pier

 

A portrait of a local.

 

 

 
On Sunday afternoon we went to a production of Neil Simon's Chapter Two at the Laguna Playhouse.  The playhouse often puts on fantastic productions and this was no exception.  It was clever, funny, and well acted and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

The theater, of course, doesn't allow flash photography, but I snuck in a quick shot, sans flash, at the intermission, of the wonderful set.

Conscious Choices

 After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully.  After five years, look at it with suspicion.  And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.  ~Alfred Edward Perlman, New York Times, 3 July 1958

I follow a financial blog called The Simple Dollar and yesterday’s post was about “Training Your Intuition” and how to basically make good choices you can trust. 

First, you have to take a serious look at the choices you’re making and be willing to say, “Yes, I am making poor decisions.”

Of course, he was speaking mostly of financial decisions but it also lends itself to any decision in life.  In my case, how I spend my time on a daily basis.

look for a single decision that you make regularly in the wrong direction. It could be anything. Maybe you come home from work and vegetate for too long.

This is me.  I make a decision to come home from work and turn on the TV and stay there until it’s time to go to bed - ignoring housework, friends, studying, writing, taking pictures.  All those other choices I COULD be making on how to spend my time.

IT IS A CONSCIOUS DECISION.

Whenever I approach one of those decision points, I attempt to do things as close to my visualization as possible. The goal is to make the “right” way of doing things feel like the natural way of doing it.

At some point, your conscious decision becomes an unconscious habit.  My next goal is to work on consciously changing that old habit.  Visualize the life I want to be living and make appropriate choices on how to spend my time in accordance with the life I want.

Busy, Busy

"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?" - Henry David Thoreau

I thought it was supposed to SLOW DOWN after the holidays.  I've been busier than ever.  It seems like everything is coming to a head all at once.

I am studying for my certification exam.  I hope to take it by the end of February and have a LOT of studying to do.  It seems my first exam was a cakewalk next to this one, the material being exponentially more difficult.  (At least in my opinion and I finished at the top of my class for the first one!)

I am scrambling to get this trip to Scotland planned so I can make reservations before every place gets booked up for the season.  The Alaska trip seemed a lot easier to plan than this one.  Alaska sort of lends itself to where you are going and what you will do when you get there.  Go to Anchorage = take a glacier cruise.  Up to Fairbanks?  Stop at Denali.

But the Hebrides are many, many islands with many places of interest across them.  Do I visit this castle or that standing stone?  This village or that one?  Stick to the Outer Hebrides or stop off in Mull?  Some of the smaller, less known islands?  Does the ferry even run on the day I want to get off that island?  Geesh!

I'm going to visit my parents in a couple weeks so I have to clean my place.  One cannot leave a messy house when travelling.

Before I go, I have to get my cats to the vet, and myself off to the dentist.  Not to mention a training webinar I have to attent for my future Red Cross volunteering.  And every book I was on a waiting list for at the library has come in all at once.  And since there are people on the lists after me, I can't renew them so I have to read them ASAP!

This is what I get for wanting to stop being a couch potato!

At least I'm being treated to some beautiful (if COLD!) mornings on my walks.  (sorry, most pictures from walks are taken with an iPhone so the quality is pretty bad.)

Moving Forward

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

 

I hate New Year's Resolutions.  How helpful is such a generic idea as "lose weight" or "start a relationship"?  And who ever keeps those useless resolutions anyway?

A wonderful professor once gave his students some advice that has always stuck with me.  Choose five things you want to learn or do every year and do them.  Yes, they are sort of like resolutions but instead of these vague "I wish" statements, they are more like action plans.  Something you CAN accomplish.

1. Get more involved in photography.
1. I have a wonderful opportunity to act as a photographer and blogger for the American Red Cross and spotlight some of the amazing work they do.  Not only will this give me many photographic opportunities, but also the chance to stretch my writing wings as well.  And the opportunity to give something back to the community.
2. Add some more healthy recipes to my regular culinary repertoir.
1. I accompished last year's goal of starting to excercise regularly.  Now I need to work on my (horrendous) diet.  Become more vegetarian (not completely veg, but closer).  So I need to find some tasty recipes that can act as regular, healthy go to recipes.
3. Move.
1. My current appartment has two things going for it:  cheap rent and convenient location.  Other than that, I hate it.  Every year, I tell myself this year I'm going to move, but I really like the money I am able to save and my 7 minute commute to work.  But after two expensive acts of vandalism on my car and an equally expensive act of God in the last year, I am ready to find myself a better place to live.  (although, I hate to say, I may still find an excuse to put it off for yet another year when the time comes).
4. Plan another trip.
1. Like the trip to Alaska last year, we are planning another for this year.  Lots of work to do.
5. Get off my couch and out of my apartment.
1. The first and fourth already cover some of this, but I want more.  Find more photographic and volunteer opportunities other than the Red Cross.  I know this one is a little too vague for the exercise, but I am still working on refining this to more specific activities.  I have enough to get me started and a year to accomplish them.

*I reserve the right to alter, modify or outright change any and all on my list at any point in time.

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone has a wonderfull Christmas full of love and grace.