It's Official! I'm out of shape.

Mousey, as he has now been named in the apartment (I know, we shouldn't have named him. This was not my doing), is still out and about, being far too smart to take the traps we've laid out for him. I've taken to clapping and loudly announcing my presence in the kitchen so he knows to hide. This does in fact mean I look certifiably insane every time I go to get a drink/make dinner/throw something out. -clap clap- "I'M COMING IN MOUSE, HIDE YOURSELF!" -clap clap-

Back in March, there was a Groupon in Roanoke that offered zip lining and wall climbing for $20 out in New Castle (a happening town with a gas station and a Subway). Both OfficeMate and I purchased this Groupon, and it's actually been the only one we've purchased as of since. Roanoke's new to the Groupon scene, and most of the offers are for spas or mail-order food. But hey, $20 for wall climbing and a zip line is a damn good deal, so we went ahead and nabbed it.

First off, when you're banking on your iphone to get you to a location where there is little to no cell reception, you're going to get lost. Especially when your phone tells you to make a left and drive two miles, when in reality you're supposed to go RIGHT and drive two miles. Awesome.

When we finally reached the place, it was packed full of people camping, canoeing, biking, and every other outdoorsy pasttime imaginable. Besides just arriving late, we then spent about half an hour walking around trying to find a main office and employees. That being said, once we found the office and the employees, the zip lining was good fun and the climbing wall was awesome. I struggled twice, though. Yes, we only did two activities and I struggled during both. To get to the top of the zip line, there was a pretty decently steep hike. Being unprepared, neither of us had come with water nor had we eaten anything all day, and the employee was BOOKING it to the top of the hill. I should come with a warning: Not as in shape as I appear. Then, THEN, the climbing wall. I climbed up the first half like a champ, and then I paused. Not only did I not know where to go next because all the rock-like things were too small, I was also horribly out of breath. I somehow made it to the top of the wall and thought about victoriously raising my arms Rocky-style, but opted against it.

We left and high-tailed it to a gas station for some granola bars and gatorade. I was hurting. Not only was a starving and dehydrated, I HURT. I hurt the next morning. I hurt the next afternoon. Then I hurt two mornings later and knew I was just pathetic. I've been doing yoga to try to fix this. Most likely it will be to no avail and I'll give up in a week. Damn you, exercise, my lifelong nemesis.

My First Sunburn (and other 4th of July Pasttimes)

No, not my first sunburn ever, but my first sunburn in nine or ten years. I generally pride myself on being able to throw on some SPF 15 or 25, and being good for the rest of day. That's generally a good enough coating for my semi-latina skin to develop a nice, sun-kissed glow.

So today when I left to go tubing, I did just that. I slathered on some oil-free 15 (some 100 on my face - we don't want wrinkles, ladies!) and figured I'd be good to go for the day. A group of five ladies and myself hopped on our tubes and started our fourish hour trek down the river in Natural Bridge.* While everyone else constantly reapplied their SPF 50, I said no thanks and silently thanked my latin genes for keeping me from burning.

About hour three, I began to feel hot. By hour four, I noticed my thighs were looking a little red. By the time we got out of the water, I knew my legs were goners. By the time we got back to Granny's and I changed out of my swimsuit, I knew that a sunburn this bad had not happened since 2002 in Venezuela. Congratulations, Natural Bridge, your sunlight did in one day what the Canary Islands sun could not do in an entire week back in 2009. When I got back home, I slathered on the aloe vera, cranked up my little AC unit and just stood on a stool in front of it. I don't know what else to do. I'm considering a bag of frozen peas for each leg and maybe I'll just sleep in the freezer tonight. True story, I took two precautionary advil. So if you happen to see someone around that looks like me, but a lobster, that's just me, looking like a lobster.... for the first time in almost a decade. I am shamed.

In other news...
My wonderful parents (plus the pooch) came down on Thursday so that The Car Whisperer (Hi, Dad!) could take a look at Mr. Merlot. My father, by some miracle, was able to fix the car without even having to replace the starter (although, he had one ready just in case). However, this was not before he mentioned the car might have permanent electrical damage which caused me to burst into tears over the thought of having to spend that much money on a car again (I'm looking at YOU, living stipend!). All for naught, though! For now, Mr. Merlot is fine and up and running. Knock on wood.

We spent Friday hiking and grabbing some grub. Saturday was spent at the Farmer's Market ($1 eggplant, I kid you not!) and then the lake with OfficeMate and his parents. Today's venture to Natural Bridge has completed my outdoorsyness for a few days, at least until this burn turns into a tan or peels off. Yeah, yeah enjoy that lovely visual.

For now, though, I'll just nurse this burn and continue to motivate my skin. "You lasted so long without a burn, you've got this! Just turn it into a tan and I'll be sure to reapply from now on! We had such a good system going, why did you turn on me? Water under the bridge! Just heal! I'll keep giving you aloe vera and advil!"

Happy Fourth of July! I'm two of the colors on the American Flag! All three, if you count how blue my heart is after this sunburn.

*The tubing was lovely and relaxing. I enjoyed being able to lay out in the sunlight, let the current take my tube and I, and just absorb the (damn sunlight) lovely views of the surrounding mountains. No photos available because I love my camera and iPhone.

Uphill Climb

As I write this, I am frantically running back and forth to my kitchen, lovingly adding more chicken broth to my risotto and giving it a nice little mix. With a glass of wine. And then I intend to eat my risotto with chopsticks, because I haven't used them since I've moved to this town. So, it's more or less an average evening.

I have, as of late, but wherefore I know not (spot the nerd reference), developed an unhealthy obsession with Mad Men. I've stopped reading and now spend my free time completely engulfed in the lives of Don Draper and Peggy. Oh, Peggy. How did you manage to get yourself a private office, at 22, as a female in an advertising agency in 1960? I don't even get a door on my shared office. You're my hero. Let's be best friends.

OfficeMate and I successfully climbed to McAfee's Knob this past weekend. Well, climbed is a very strong word for what I did. I huffed. I sat on a log and was passed by children and people legitimately doing the Appalachian Trail with massive backpacks. I shamed OfficeMate by making him stop, too. He climbed. I huffed.Aside from my being shamefully out of shape (It was hot! I was getting over a cold! We only brought one water bottle! I ran cross country nine years ago! Doesn't that count for anything anymore?), the view at the top was absolutely worth it. The view is absolutely breathtaking, and I'm embarrassed it took me until now to get out there. It honestly is not that far from where I'm currently living. I am also now one of those cliche people with a facebook photo of themselves at the top. Sue me.

And finally, sadly, I've begun job hunting again. Much like my hike this weekend, I'm horribly out of shape. If you're a prospective employer, hey, what's up? Let's chat sometime. Job hunting is soul-crushing work. I've said it before and I'll say it again; the whole process is like a bad dating scene. "Hey, I think we'd be great together! I like combating (insert nonprofit mission statement here), too! We should get together sometime. No, I'm looking for something long-term. I think we'd work really well together. Please give me a shot! I THINK YOU'RE CUTE! PLEASE CALL ME!"

Ah, the joys of being back here, not even 12 months since the last time.

Welcome, Splendid Sunshiney Spring!

Springtime!
My favorite part of any season is its initial arrival. I love the beginning of summer when the pools open and you see kids everywhere because school is finally out. I adore when fall rolls in and you grab a scarf on your way out the door, and can't help but notice the tops of trees changing to yellows and reds. The first snowfall of winter is always something to behold.

But today, today I would like to embrace the arrival of springtime. I thought it was coming a few weeks ago when I saw some daffodils fighting their way out of the earth, but this weekend Spring decided to come on out in all of its glory. I broke out the flip flops, I wore a dress (pale legs be damned!), and I cherished every single bud on the trees. Roanoke is blossoming, and it's gorgeous. Downtown is covered in dogwoods, lilacs cheer up the cemetery across the street, daffodils recline in front yards, welcoming the extended daylight hours.

Hiking
In order to properly celebrate this weather, I've gotten myself outside. I went running last week, and had decided that I wanted to conquer McAfee Knob on Saturday. OfficeMate being an adventurous soul, decided to join me. So off we went, ready to brave the gazillion other hikers that were no doubt going to be out on this gorgeous March afternoon to the most photographed location on the Appalachian Trail. The parking lot was packed, but I refused to be deterred. Being overzealous, I blazed ahead without bothering to read any signs. We stopped after about 3/4 of a mile for a scenic overlook, but I wanted to continue on to the overlook - the one people travel to Roanoke for. So we kept on trucking.

Two hours later, we had seen practically no one, which was odd considering the amount of people in the parking lot. We smartphoned it up to discover we were in fact on the Appalachian Trail, but had hiked about four miles south... not north. Whoops. It was still a beautiful day and I'm thankful I was able to get such a solid hike in, even if it wasn't to McAfee Knob. Just another hike for another weekend. Plus, that first overlook wasn't so shabby.
But goodness, I need to start researching my hikes more to avoid more directional catastrophes.

Cooking (of course)
The kitchen has been ablaze (not literally, knock on wood) with activity. Along with Pi Day, last week was also St. Patrick's Day. Now, it bears mentioning that I don't have an ounce of Irish blood in me. There's plenty of Latin blood and a hint of Scottish, but no Irish. Ergo, when I attempted to make corned beef and cabbage, I over-analyzed a simple recipe and it didn't come out quite like I had envisioned. It was rather... tough. I also had no beer in the apartment (there is almost never beer in this apartment), so instead, I had a nice Spanish wine from Galicia. That was the least disastrous part of that St. Patrick's Day meal. I'll leave Irish food to the Irish from here on out.

Luckily, my breakfast food is still reliable. When I moved to this apartment in October, I decided to start brushing up on my breakfast food skills. Other than Eggo waffles and cereal, I had never really been up for cooking in the AM hours. Now, either on a Saturday or Sunday morning(ish), I'll cook up some solid amounts of brunch. French toast, pancakes, eggs, homefries, sausage, bacon, eggs in a basket.... I've done it all. I'm actually quite proud of my homefries, which have taken months of practice to get to their current level of tastiness. Should you ever eat them, do yourself a favor and don't ask me how much butter is in them.

Training
This week, I leave for a two-day training with the Center for Nonprofit Excellence in Charlottesville. I'm hoping to learn the techniques behind identifying proper funding sources for various nonprofit areas of interest ranging from early childhood education to health and wellness. Something I've struggled with has been getting various rejections for grants I've applied for. After a little bit of trial and error, I deduced that it wasn't so much that my proposals were poorly written or the programming wasn't desirable, but that the who was all wrong. I was asking any old foundation for funding, focusing on getting out a request, rather than finding the foundations who wanted to fund my exact program. So, hopefully, I'll come back from Charlottesville with some more ideas and a better plan of attack for the office and our clients.

Coincidentally, a dear friend of mine from college is celebrating her 24th birthday in Charlottesville this weekend, so I'll be there cheering her on this Saturday as she runs the Charlottesville Ten-Miler. It shall be grand.

Here's to a productive week.

Geocaching and Kitchen Adventures

I spend a lot of time trying to find ways to pass the time in Roanoke. Generally, I get disillusioned after only finding information for shuffleboard tournaments and girl scout award ceremonies, but sometimes something comes up that seems legitimately interesting.

One of the blogs I follow, Rage Against the Minivan, mentioned geocaching. Upon further observation and some solid researching (thanks, Wikipedia!), I learned that it's really just a scavenger hunt for nerds. They even have a legit site for which you need a login. People hide waterproof containers in random locations, and then you get to find it using your GPS device. Or, in my and OfficeMate's case - our iPhones. Sometimes they're filled with fun trinkets, and the idea is if you take something, you leave something as well.

So we did what any normal 20-something in Roanoke would do (because honestly, there can't be more than like 5 more of us) - we went geocaching. There's a park-ish type area a few blocks from our place, so off we went. We began with the caches ranked one-star, or the most simple, and ended up scaling some serious cliffs, and later, walking on some now-out-of-use railroad tracks. Child-friendly? Please. Keep in mind, I of course, was not dressed for this occasion and was scaling cliffs in traction-less flats and trying to keep my Raybans from falling off my head.

After approximately an hour or so of this madness, I began to think this whole thing was a hoax. It was some master plan created by the internet to make two people in Roanoke look like idiots in their neighborhood and potentially trespass for the second time in two weeks. I also questioned whether this was a Peter Pan type scenario - that perhaps we were just too old to properly geocache - since it is really created for children.And then I spotted it. A flash of white inside a tree trunk. At first I thought it was my awful eyes seeing what they wanted to see, but no! It was there! A plastic container with a sheet to sign claiming you had found it, full of fun things for the taking. I took a magic capsule (currently growing into what I can only hope is a dinosaur) in exchange for an old cell phone charm from high school. Walking back to the apartment, we spotted the initial one we were searching for just by chance - of course. I still have a lone monkey from a barrel of monkeys that I need to give to another geocache, so there's still at least one adventure left in this department. Also, I'm telling myself this totally counts as exercise.

Meanwhile, in my kitchen...
When my sister came to visit, she brought with her a bag of spinach, courtesy of my mother. Not being sure what to do with it, I left it for a few days. On Monday, I used my fancy Epicurious app (quite possibly my favorite one on my phone) and found a recipe for Bibimbap. I threw in some spinach and carrots, and had to stop there for lack of space in my bowl. Now, I am far from Korean, and I've had legitimate Bibimbap two or three times, and while mine was not nearly as tasty, it was still pretty solid and not half bad for a Latina trying to be Asian for one night.

This morning, I made sour cream pancakes to rid myself of sour cream that had been building up since Mexican a few nights back. Also courtesy of the Epicurious app, and also delicious. All my culinary successes from the week (I OWNED that spaghetti!) had made me ambitious, and I decided to try a souffle. A spinach-mushroom Parmesan-Chevre souffle.

He's beautiful, as you can see. However, I folded my egg whites in all wrong, ruining the consistency towards the center. Seeing as he was my very first souffle though, I shall continue to be proud of myself.

Off-Season Hiking

One of the wonderful things about living in a valley is that I am surrounded by mountains. Mountains, and hence, a large assortment of trails to hike. Sadly, I was only able to get two hikes in during the fall season before moving (Version 3.0) and cold weather no longer made it possible.

This week was unseasonably warm, and my sister came to visit for President's Day weekend. Due to the 60-70 degrees we were enjoying, I figured we'd explore a new trail. I had heard Peaks of Otter was a fantastic hike, so off we went on a spectacularly sunny Saturday.

The parking area was closed off, so we followed suit of the two other cars and parked by some rocks. The trail we choose was, I thought, moderately simple. It was approximately two miles up to the summit, but what I missed was the choice word up. I felt like I was rock climbing rather than hiking, an unpleasant realization for someone who has barely exercised in the past five or six months. Also, one must ALWAYS remember to factor in the wind chill when you find yourself on the top of a mountain in the middle of February with no foliage. It's also embarrassing when old men pass you, and then sporty looking high-school/college age girls give you false encouragement when they see you struggling.

My family likes to tell ourselves we're outdoorsy. I really don't think we are.

Upon (almost) reaching the summit, after being blown around by strong winds and humiliated by all those we encountered, we saw the piece de resistance; we saw a man in the middle of the trail, napping in his hammock strung up between two trees (see right). My mind immediately raced to the headlines: "Two Hikers Found Dead on Flat Top Trail - Interrupted Angry Murder's Nap." My sister, the elder and thus the braver, forged ahead, trying to be quiet as leaves crunched around this guy's camelback while we creeped on by. On our trip down from the summit, we noticed he was now cuddling with someone in his hammock. Both hammock-dwellers even said hello. At least Angry Murder was pleasant.

Fast forward to Day Two of Sister's visit. I'm itching to see Foamhenge something fierce, and by my awesome powers of persuasion, I convince both her and OfficeMate that this is a fabulous idea. Let's drive 45 minutes to see Stonehenge made of Styrofoam! There was a caveat, though, and that was that we had to do another hike while out there. Now, I was still pretty sore from my rock climbing/wind beating/creeping around potential Angry Murders from the day before, but one must compromise in life, especially to see Foamhenge.

Foamhenge was just as epic, if not more, than I thought it would be. Sadly, some people have defaced this dorky work of art, and it could go for a second spray of paint. Sister and OfficeMate were perhaps amused, but not nearly as enamored as I, with Foamhenge.

Once in the car, we researched nearby trails. One option was a hike I had done back in October, and another was by a lake. Similar to Smith Mountain Lake, Cave Mountain Lake claimed to be man-made, but on a much smaller scale. Wanting to diversify my hiking experiences, this is where we headed.

Similar to the day before, the entrance was locked with a sign that said, "Closed for the Season." Nature doesn't close for seasons, so we refused to acknowledge this suggestion. Again, we parked outside the gate, and walked in. Turns out, we were at a national park with campgrounds and everything. Just, no people, because it was closed for the season. We walked around, looking desperately for a trail to hike, to no avail. Finally we encountered something titled the "Panther Trail," and there was much rejoicing. This trail, because it is the off-season, was unkempt. At one point, I used my Hulk-like strength to hurl a tree (small branch) out of our way. Sister has photographic evidence. And then... and then we saw the lake.
Except, it was just sand. And mud. There was no lake. Nature, it seems, can close for the season. Especially when nature is man-made and drained when the park is closed to the public. This, I suppose, was our punishment for trespassing? It made for a most amusing hike, though.

We ventured past the dam which was stopping nonexistent water from nothing, and began to trailblaze. This was a mistake. Venturing off the beaten path while trespassing at a closed national park is generally frowned upon, I would assume. We crossed a stream via fallen log, and found ourselves in the forest, next to a gravel road. Handy iPhone helped find our location, but we soon noticed some rather shady houses with angry looking dogs locked in cages in their front yards. We retreated into the forest, towards the faux-lake, beyond the unnecessary dam, and back to the car.

Don't hike in the off-season. It's cold, humiliating, and potentially illegal.

It is, however, amazing. And I mean, really, this weather is begging for it.

The Best....

Hiking
I went hiking this weekend.
I've been talking about going hiking in this neck of the woods since I applied for this job back in May (June?), and have just gotten around to it.
Britannica invited me for a family/girls-night sort of weekend to be held at Granny's house. Granny is Britannica's 75+ grandmother who cooks obscene amounts of homemade biscuits and really any other kind of food you could possibly imagine, knits house slippers for her guests (mine are blue and yellow!), and keeps a shotgun in her bathroom to shoot the groundhogs in the backyard, of course.

Granny lives in a neighboring valley down some serious back roads, and her front porch wins the prize for best view in the state, looking out onto some seriously majestic parts of the Blue Ridge. She had an uncle who deserted from WWI and lived in the mountains for seven years, with his mother leaving him food every few days (I apologize for my paraphrasing of what is truly an incredible tale. I can't do it justice). Granny is, in short, fantastic.
We, being four of us ladies while Granny stayed home, went for a hike mid-morning up to an area called The Devil's Marbleyard (for more info, check this out). Essentially, one hikes up to a rockface with boulders the size of Mr. Merlot. I initially clambered around the rocks precariously, but soon enough was putting my hamstrings to the test and doing some impressive maneuvering. I'm still not sure how I didn't die. It was great. The following photo is brought to you by my ghetto camera phone, because my real camera had dead batteries. Yes, this was my view from the top.
The Best
Today, I was asked what was the best moment I've had since I moved. My initial response was my hike this weekend because, honestly, did you see that view?? Pair that view with some phenomenal hiking companions and general joviality, and it made for one hell of a day.

However, while Saturday was incredible, it was not the top moment. My top moment has probably been one nondescript afternoon while driving home. That moment where the windows are down, the sun is setting over the mountains, the family-friendly radio station is cranking out some hit from 1955, and I know I'm trying my best at work - that's the moment where I am most contended, knowing I live in the most beautiful place on earth doing the best work I can.