dolphins

once upon a time there was a six year old girl.

this little girl loved sports. this was strange cuz her parents could really care less about athletics, and her only sibling was to much older to really have a major impact on her.

when she was eight years old, her best friend 'dared' her to try a contest taking place during recess. since she was never one to back down from a dare, she walked over to the basketball courts where the contest was taking place. she wrote her name down and waited in line. when it was her turn, an edelrly man handed her a basketball and told her to try and throw it into the basket. since she had never played basketball before she wasn't exactly sure what to do, but knew that somehow she would have to get it into the net. so she dropped the ball down and threw it up underhand - also known as granny style. much to her surprise the ball went in the net. she had to do it 10 more times and ended up making 8 of the 10. a few minutes later that same gentleman told her she had won the contest.

the little girl was shocked.

for at the wee age of 8 she experienced for the first time what it felt like to be good at something. she went on to compete county wide where she took second. thus launching her little know basketball career. she continued to compete in the contests for the next few years, winning at the school and then county level almost every time. when she was 10 she got her big break and made it all the way to the Los Angeles Semi -State Finals, where she heartbreakingly took second.

the little girl quickly realized that she loved basketball. she would go to the recreation department almost every day after school and practice shooting. she would sleep with her basketball and watched micheal jordan religiously. basketball was her world, her everything.

by the time she was 9, she began to realize that athletics came easy to her. why not mix it up? after a brief AYSO soccer career, she decided to take it to the next level.

since her second love was the SF 49ers, which she also watched religiously every sunday with her dad and brother, she thought maybe she'd try her hand at football. the adults around her just kind of laughed at the idea, and strung her along in the expectation the phase would pass.

but this little girl was very stubborn.

and so when she saw signs for pop warner youth football, she threw a massive fit until her mom walked her over to the sign-ups. the good ol boys had a good laugh at the idea and humored her mom-- secretly hoping it couldn't be-- surely there must be something in the rules about girls not playing!

yet they were wrong, and it was then and there that a skinny little girl called holly richmond became the first girl in SLO county to play pop warner football.

with that sweet tale, i'm dying to know....

'what about your childhood wouldn't most people guess?'

make out mountain

sorry if you've missed me.

i wish i could say i've been to busy makin love like p diddy, but instead i've been busy being in the most beautiful wedding of all time (besides my own) and trying to ferberize my 9 month old.

what can i say, life gets busy.

but oh, oh how i have missed thee...

and though i haven't been hittin the sugar shack as much as i want to, i will say i have been thinking a bit about makin out.

see it always comes back to running.

i realized the other day as i was running in slo that this dang town is sooooo full of memories. on a whim, i headed over the jennifer st bridge, and huffed my way up terrace hill, and when i reached the plateau, the memories came a floddin.'

for those of you who aren't lucky enough to call yourself slo locals.... you might not know that terrace hill is where it ALL went down. since slo is such a small town, there wasn't like old cornfields or abandoned barns for us wily high-schoolers to drink our beer in-- instead we devised a 'hill' that was just difficult enough to climb up to stave off those bored coppers roaming the streets. every few months or so from the years 1993-1997 we would receive 'word' that something was gonna shake down on ol t-hill. so we'd round up some fuzzy navel and our best v-neck and make the trek. when we'd finally reach the top, instead of marveling at the beautiful town below us, we'd try and scope out who was makin out with who, and where the liquor was (we were a classy bunch).

anyway, the general debauchery would continue until we saw those little flashlights makin their way up the path. word would hit, and we would scatter like leaves in the wind-- we'd be trickling down the sides of terrace hill, running through brush, tripping over rocks, all just to avod the 5-o. later we'd call each other and tell of our escape, and who we made it with. other times we'd hear of the not so luckies that landed the dreaded MIP. in any event terrace hill was a big part of my high school experience....

but that's not where i got busted.

3 words: laguna lake park.

now let me just preface by saying there are many places to 'park' in slo in the back of your boyfriends parents 4-runner. laguna lake is not one of them.

picture it: me, 1996. tired of the old make-out spots, me and a boy we'll call 'gunner' decide to mix it up. we start driving around and make our way over to the glorified pond lake. we drive around to the back, past the park, and find a spot. one thing leads to the next (as it does quickly in high school) and before i know it we're in it thick. and not seconds after we round second base, a little light flashes in those factory tinted windows. at first we just ignore it, prolly just a car driving by, but then the light becomes brighter, and is accompanied by knocking and a deep voice. suddenly we become very aware that someone is trying to get our attention, and short of feeling like we're in the sequel to scream, i scrounge to find my shirt as gunner rolls down a window.

officer: 'good evening. what are you doing here?'

gunner: 'oh, just hanging out.'

officer: 'just hanging out huh? are you alone?' as he flashes his light to the back of the car and sees me holding a shirt up across my chest. 'hmm, i see.'

gunner: 'we were a just hanging out, i promise,' as his voice starts to quake and moves an octave higher.

officer: 'do your parents know where you are?' the dreaded words. for the love, please don't call our parents.

after what seemed like an eternity he finally said, 'alright, you kids run along home now, i don't want to see you over here again, you got that?'

a resounding 'yes sir!'

we got our clothes rearranged and gunner started the car.

'whew, that was close huh?' he said.

'yeah, kinda scary. my heart was pounding!' i confessed.

after a minute, i looked over at him and said, 'well, should we head to the airport viewing lot?'

and off we went. you can't stop hormones teenage love, just ask jake ryan.

so with that said, please do tell...

'where is your hometown's best make-out spot?'

or... for the brave few--

'have you ever been caught in the act?'

summer hasn't been so bad.

not nearly as hard as i thought. kids have only been making me a tiny bit crazy. we've stayed busy with camps, elks, bbq's, friends, camping. you know the drill. your basic summatime.

since we were out of town last weekend and are leaving in a couple days for yosemite, i thought i'd grace y'all with the best part of my summer-- these faces.

holy crap, i'm cute y'all!

i finally got my blue eyed beauty

you didn't know i had 3 girls huh?

teaching tali to read. cuz we're genius's

fernwood camp trip May 2010

my house is a very, very, very fine house

when b and i heard the news from his ever so generous parents that owning a home could become a reality for us, we immediately began our search.

first, we found the best realtor in the county (we didn't have to look far!) and began pouring over the MLS. we knew immediately that slo wasn't gonna be an option. we tried to finagle a way to make it happen, but knew that if we did, we'd be at the high end of what we could afford and stuck in a tiny house. we decided on either arroyo grande or los osos. we had a lot of friends in AG and knew that the commute would be minor for b. in the back of our minds we also knew that AG would likely be a better investment in the long run, but in the end it came down to one thing.

surfing.

yep, that's right. we basically chose los osos cuz the waves are better here. now before all you south countiers get up in arms, just know we don't hate the wrongboarders out in shell, or all of bakersfield that invades pismo all summer long-- its just we really like the idea that we could be contaminating our groundwater with our own s%*t.

nah, the reality is neither of them are perfect, but at the time osos is where we thought we would call home.

for those of you who know me, you know i love los osos. i could dedicate entire blogs to this town. sure its kooky, sandy, full of hippies and lacking a sewer or basic city planning, but the reality is, its also full of a lot of really awesome people parked in one of the most foggiest beautiful areas on the central coast. we got mountain biking, boating, surfing, trail running, hiking, literally all minutes from our door. and one of the raddest parts about it, is we have wonderful neighbors and friends to share it with.

yet, i digress once again. so began our search in los osos. we looked at a lot of houses. i was convinced that we couldn't be on a numbered street because no one would come visit us (this was before i moved all of my best friends here). i thank the lord b didn't listen to that crazy talk and convinced me that i couldn't discriminate against numbered streets. we found our way to a little part of osos called cuesta by the sea. our good friends had nothing but rave reviews about this little nook. heck- it was close to MDO and the seconds from the bay... how could we go wrong? we settled on a charming little (emphasis on little) house just two blocks from the bay. after much brilliant negotiation (thanks to our realtor) we still couldn't agree on a price. so one evening when we were hashing out whether or not we should go for it, we stumbled upon this....

we'd seen it a few times, but it was just a hair out of our price range. not to mention, it was a bit funky. but hey, its osos right? anyhow, we decided to at least check it out. i wish i could tell you it was love at first sight, but the massive rock fireplace wall, and cottage cheese ceilings were distracting me. we wandered around, and though it wasn't exactly hoarders material, there really was a lot of crap loaded in it. but it wasn't annoying crap. it was a desk in the living room, cuz there was no room for it in the kids rooms. it was surfboards and skateboards and bmx bikes hanging from the rafters in their crammed to the gils garage, it was their hand prints in the cement near the front door, it was the dining room table jammed into the corner of the kitchen with the light off-center just to be able to maximize the space and be able to fit 4 teenage kids around the dinner table. and then it was the owner of the house telling us how her son rides his bike to baywood for pizza, and her daughter rides horses up the street. and lastly, it was her telling us they already bought another house with the assurance that this house would sell a lot faster than it was. as much as i'd like to say it was my stellar negotiation skills, it really was their 'tight' situation that enabled us to reach an agreement. 30 days later we moved in two truckloads our stuff from our 750 sq ft studio on garden st. that first night we sat on the floor and ate pizza with some friends and marveled that we were now homeowners. when we went to bed that night, i laid there thinking about the baby in my tummy kicking and thought 'the house seems different than i remembered.'

sometimes i'll find myself coveting clean, new, big, shiny houses, or beautiful, old restored homes and think, 'why i am stuck in this semi-remodeled 1970's architectural experiment on a tiny lot on a street with no sidewalks?' and then i look around and can't find a matching pillowcase to save my life, or notice that our crown molding project is on two of three walls, or i see cobwebs under the eaves of our roof, or i drive up and just pray someone would please dump buckets of paint on it. but then when i walk inside and see this

and this

and this,

and of course, this

and i know.

i know that even though my house is definitely lacking refinement, and its scattered with kids artwork and hot wheels and polly pockets shoes, and no matter how much i clean it it never will smell like the new homes i used to sell, i know in my heart that this is my home, and i wouldn't have it any other way.

so with that said, i'd love to hear...

'what makes a house a home?'

mo money, mo problems.

i grew up in the other side of the tracks.

that is, if slo had tracks.

i would have been on the other side. you know the ones... most of my friends were on the right side. i've written before about coveting white carpets and new appliances and a mom and dad under the same roof, and the smell of freshly baked cookies. and though i spent a significant part of my weekends at such houses, i always came home to one amazing mom and thursday nights at my dads. we never had a lot of money. we had just enough.

don't get me wrong, i can't tell you how thankful i was for those deep country club pockets that provided me experiences my parents never could have- third row seats to warrior games, trips to hawaii, and magic mountain. fun stuff for sure, all with someone else's family. i loved and treasured those trips cuz they were definitely not the norm for me. though they weren't something my parents could afford, i remember feeling satisfied, i was never scared, and never hungry. sure, i longed for presents and gifts and the immediate gratification i saw my friends provided, but it wasn't something that consumed me.

now that i'm all growed up with a family of my own, it got me thinking i could really be a consumer if i had the resources. to be honest, having *a lot* of money scares me. could i really be trusted? mo money, mo problems yo. i gotta admit there's a bit of romance in just squeaking by-- like well, if i want to get that, i got to sell this... there is a satisfaction that comes from actually wanting-- not just always getting. sounds crazy i know and b thinks i'm coo-coo, but honestly i guess i just know my carnal nature.

yet just when we began heading towards affluenza, something changed. that little bitch called the economy. everyone loves to blame everything on the economy. and really, rightly so. crappy economy=crappy jobs=zero dollars. for a lot of people our age-ish, this whole economy tanking has been a bit of a rude awakening. maybe some of us felt the effect of a similar time in the early 90's when the market crashed... but we were teenagers and so the stress of money was distant. for most of us, the hardest part meant we wouldn't be getting our subscription to seventeen renewed. we didn't have to worry so much about food and shelter, our parents shouldered that. and then we went to college and things were kinda crappy when we graduated, but then it quickly turned around. jobs! jobs! jobs! then a lot of us got married and guess what, it didn't matter how much money you made- 'no income, no assets' became our best friend. a lot of us got into houses we couldn't afford and popped out a few kids and then we woke up and were like, 'oh crap, we can't make our mortgage!' and suddenly the stakes were so much higher, cuz we had people we were responsible for. very little people.

i feel super fortunate to have escaped most of this. i mean really fortunate. b has had some pay cuts and my real estate career - wait what? your a realtor? like a broker? like you would love to help us find our dream home? or list our house for a 1% listing? yes, as a matter of fact i would. and the good news is, i will work my mother of 3 booty off for you, cuz you are probably my only client i care that much. ahem, as i was saying, my real estate career has tanked slowed downed considerably. however, we are fortunate to have that little bit of savings (from the good ol days) that continues to waste away as we nibble away at it each month to make up for the pay-cuts. with that said, i have so many friends that this has affected in a really, really real way. its so difficult to watch your friends gasping to stay afloat, and feeling too strapped yourself to help in a substantial way. i want to blame someone, like bush, or fox news, or hurricane katrina, or the j-holes on wall street, but nothing really helps. the fact of the matter is, whether you are loosing your home to foreclosure, or just barely squeaking by each month, times are tight.

so when b and i got to talking the other day about how few dollars we actually have, i told him if we just (just always being the operative word) had like $300 more a month, we could make it. and he said, 'with that extra money, would we be putting any into savings?'

yeah right.

it was then and there we decided that you were officially doing okay if you were able to save each month. the reality is, we live paycheck to paycheck, and so do almost all of our friends.

so with that said, i'd love to know...

'how much money do you need to make before it's enough?'

leave it to the wise woman...

comment of the day: I once heard "enough is a little bit more than you already have." so we never have enough. it's good that we are all in the boat together. the most generous people i know have next to nothing. just a reminder that this is not our home.

-Roxanne Foote

bed bugs

do yourself a favor and do NOT google image search bedbugs. i'm pretty sure i just threw up in my mouth.

bed bugs are hot right now. oprah got them on her show, and now no one is safe anymore. i'm not so concerned about bed bugs because i'm to busy being stressed out about black mold and flesh eating maggots dropping slowly into your bed over the course of two days before realizing it. but that's another TRUE story for another time. in any event i got to thinking about beds in general the other day when we decided to take down the co-sleeper. with tali being almost 8 months old, we are dangerously close to getting our ferber on and letting her cry it out. its never easy, but we have to before we decide to start continuum parenting which is always creepy.

so anyway, as b wrestled the co-sleeper out of our room i took a wee peek under it and then further under our bed. it was the usual suspects, long lost pacifiers, used and un-used nursing pads, a liberator love pad, stray infant socks, all nestled in copious amounts of hair and dust. pretty awesome, and very stressful for my inner non-existent neat freak. in any event it got me thinking- i've come a long way from the drug paraphernalia and too short cd's hiding under my bed from my youth. cuz really, nothing says mom like lost breast pump parts being found under your bed when you do finally do get the hose attachment on your vacuum and bend over to clean. don't be jealous.

i know its not the most exciting question-- or maybe it is... in any event, please do tell,

'what's under your bed?'

i knew he'd claim it as soon as he came around... he's kind of a genius and if you haven't already, you should really check out his blog- just don't start reading his instead of mine.

comment of the day: a secret hatch that when opened, reveals a ladder that takes you down to an underground bunker with a single desk, on which sits a computer that I make Jenn enter the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 and 42 into, lest the world come to an end.

-Travis Avila

safety first

i love running in san luis.

i can't tell you how many times i've been so ready to dedicate an entire blog to all the sights and scents that spell home to me. from the smell of wet asphalt at my old elementary, to the myriads of all those flowers i don't know the names of (yes i still pay $100 a month for the B.S in horticulture i received at cal poly).

SLO has it all, and then some.

today that 'some' came in the form of my personal safety. for those of you that are female, who run or hike, personal safety is never far from your mind. i have lots of friends who only run/hike with someone else, or carry pepper spray, or some other form of defense-- but then there are those of us, myself included, who are naive enough to think that they are immune to any sort of calamity. its SLO after all right?!

i live in osos. i do most of my running in osos. MDO is my backyard and it doesn't get much better trail running than out here. of course there have been a few isolated cases of attack in the park, but for the most part it feels pretty darn safe- our biggest threat being ticks, snakes and oak. i've had my run in with all three, including the time a baby rattlesnake blocked my path and i had to be rescued by st. francis of montana de oro, or as i later found out the checker on aisle 4 at trader's. but that's another story for another time. i'm used to the park, and when i get my music goin' and my stride dialed, i rarely feel frightened, or consumed by the idea that mariska hargitay will have to discover my body later.

so the other day when my mom offered to watch the kids so i could go on a run, i agreed immediately. after dropping the kids off, i got my shoes on, turned up the gaga and hit the pavement. one of my old running routes from my days in SLO involves meadow park. growing up, meadow was my old stomping grounds. i had a bunch of friends in elementary school who lived there and i spent countless hours in that neighborhood doing paper routes, playing softball, and hiding in the bushes to spray innocent bystanders with a water main. there were some good times for sure. so when i passed the obligatory homeless man i didn't think much of it, till a few hundred meters up i thought, that guy wasn't just collecting cans in his shopping cart- there was more- he had that look that crazy couldn't contain. it gave me a little shiver as i made my way onto the path in meadow park. of course just as i turn the corner i almost hit another (male) runner, and then we do that super awkward like who's gonna take the lead bit- there are only two of us on this single track path, and i'm having thoughts like 'if i'm in front he'll probably attack me from behind, if only my hand could automatically turn into a switchblade when i'm provoked...' you know all the normal stuff. once i safely get away from him, i notice a 'work crew'- you know the kind. yeah, the CMC kind. of course they are hardly working and seemingly very loosely supervised. i keep going, and just as i'm getting ready to exit the park altogether and get back on the road, i see a creepy white van that unfortunately i've seen at other parks one to many times. next time i see it, i'm totally calling the cops. i'm not one to judge *ahem* but that thing has got amber alert written all over it. i tell you what, i'll take the cat ladies any day in their ratty ol station wagon parked in front of meadow park. at least they loved animals, even if they were the reason the show 'hoarders' came to be. so i make it out of the park, back on the roads, and have a pretty uneventful rest of the run beside some questionable rabid dog that i was convinced would attack if i ran by to fast. but then i remembered i have that fear every time i run by a dog after being 'for real' attacked while running when i lived in ediburgh.

so the rest of the way to my mom's house i thought about how i could prepare myself next time for all of these 'situations.' and then it came to me... a flash of pure genius. picture it, me 12 years old, in a hot sweaty building near franks famous hot dogs. the room was packed to the gills of women of all ages from 15-75 all awaiting their chance. 'next up, we have connie mcnoble...' i hear someone shout. everyone starts cheering. i wait anxiously as my mom comes out with her war cry. next thing i know a huge thing comes chasing after her- likely a man dressed in a hockey/football combo uniform with what looks like an nasa astronaut mask on his face. next thing i know my mom is hi-ya-ing and ka-booming this fool. the crowd goes wild. my mom has him pinned... all 110 lbs of her. handled. i'm confused, but incredibly proud. who can forget... model mugging.

no, that's not dark vador, just your local model mugger.

so the real question i know you are dying to ask... am i going to re-start a chapter locally? i know, so very tempting, but even with all my free time, i think i'm gonna pass. in the meantime we gotta figure out a way to stay safe in this urban jungle called SLO. so here's where you come in...

'how do you best protect yourself when you go running or hiking by yourself?'

i copied this idea from my favorite blogger of all time cuz she's kind of a genius and i want to be just like her when i grow up and or be her comment of the day... wink wink.

comment of the day: i read a kids book in middle school where the heroine used ground mustard; she tossed it into the attackers' eyes. i'm carrying a li'l bag until i can get a dog. or a tazer.

-esther jane

mustard in the eye. genius. thanks esther.