Getting Healthy

First off, a big THANK YOU!!!! to everyone who sent me cards, text or calls yesterday on my birthday! I had a great day, sleeping in, then heading don the back-roads to Boise for sushi and to walk around the city a bit. I had originally planned on traveling to Eugene for my birthday, but due to weather hazards, that was nixxed. Instead, I took the money I would have spent on gas and I got a juicer....

Sean and I watched some really fantastic documentaries about food, nutrition and lifestyle and the effects on health, and after some research we have decided to begin a diet of about 55-70 percent raw foods. It has been an adventure, and an investment in a juicer has been brilliant. Right now I am drinking a meal of five carrots and three apples....no sugar added, no fat and it is delicious!

I would encourage everyone to think hard about how they are eating... Are you getting all your needs from food, or is food just a filler?

Photobucket

Yes, we have created a photo bucket site......No we are not good at keeping it up to date. But there is some new stuff:

http://s973.photobucket.com/home/GatoYGallo

Update from the Gem State

What's new? Well I'm on my blog for the first time in almost half a year....oops. So a quick catch up:

Trips

1. McCall, Payette Lake
2. Sisters, Suttle Lake
3. Hell's Canyon
4. Ellensburg, WA
5. Portland multiple times
6. Corvallis
7. Wallowa Lake
8. Boise a handful of times

Work

1. Mostly paper-work, documentation and planning.
2. Lots of hiking, too
3. Learning all about irrigation practices
4. Diving head-first into a new culture out here

Home

1. Sean is all moved in and set up
2. The house is starting to actually feel like a home (first time in a long while for me)
3. My new-to-me truck is awesome.....despite one thing, a bent up undercarriage which still needs fixing
4. Beer is brewing, honey is gathered, sagebrush is picked and crafts are being prepared.

Recreation

1. Tried out a couple horses, we will wait to get any animals until we have some land of our own
2. NEW GOALS: XC skiing this winter, kayaking in the spring-fall (birthday/xmas hint....any gear for either of these endeavors)
3. The board game Sequence is an absolute must for everyone! Go....get it NOW!

Ooooooooo-klahoma where the wind comes rushing through the plains!

Adventure time is coming up in about a week! I get to head to the mid-west and spend three whole weeks in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I'm being sent for work to attend "Conservation Boot Camp" or CBC*. Sounds real hard-core, like we're some sort of dirt army**. I wish, it's pretty much drilling the nine steps of conservation planning into our heads along with all the red-tape government requirements that we have to deal with. But it should be fun getting to meet about 20 other new employees from all over. I looked at the list and am excited to see some other PNW'ers from Washington state, and a few pacific island folks (THAT would be a dream locale!)





*The government is WAY too fond of acronymizing everything, I call it AAD, acronym addiction disorder
**I can't get the image of little GI Joes left in the sandbox, carrying little sharp-shooters and range-hoops

Pros and Cons {Payette Version}

Pros of living in Payette, Idaho:

• I am a "ho"
• A five minute walk gets me to the greenway--a gorgeous walking path by the confluence of the Payette and Snake Rivers
• Only need to cross the bridge to get back to Oregon
• An ice cream truck runs right by my house on Fridays!
• Constant entertainment such as watching a guy get pulled over at 11 am for going the wrong way down the road on a riding mower with a 40 oz of pbr taped in his hand
• Only an hour from Boise, the Owyhee Dam, McCall, the Payette National Forest, and the Boise National Forest
• You feel good about yourself by just having all your teefers and not wearing spandex or having a mullet
• All new appliances in my awesome little house

Cons of living in Payette, Idaho:

• I'm a "ho"
  
• Spandex
• Mullets
• Sales Tax
• Sitting in your car at the gas station for about five minutes before remembering you have to pump your own gas
• You feel like a loser without a gun rack and/or antlers on your truck (or coyote tails and rattler buttons tied to your antennae)
• Being so far away from the people I love the most
  

An Important Post

As I was sitting in my cubicle doing on-line training modules today at work, watching the rain come down, wishing I could be on a field review, I had a realization:
I am alive

That may not be astonishing to you, I know, and it shouldn't be. But almost four years ago I attempted suicide. Yeah, I'm putting that out on the world-wide-web for anyone who comes across it to read. But I think that it needs to be out there: suicide. It is made so taboo that people feel ashamed of what they have survived. But no more. Everyone should be able to talk about it, normalize it a little so that it can be openly spoken of, and so that help can be found expediently for those who are suffering so deeply.

To my family and friends who follow my blog: Thank you and I love you, each and every one of you!

Guess who isn't a college student?

ME!


I just got out of my last final....EVER! Well, unless I decide to go back to grad school in a few years, but we will have to wait and see about that. It feels absolutely surreal to be done already. But I am ready for this next step....work? BRING IT ON!