Behind

Caught this beautiful view on the way to my friend's house for an early morning ride.   It's Lake Elsinore.  

I'm  behind on a whole bunch of things, this blog being one of them. Since I'm home in my pajamas and have done nothing today due to feeling poorly, this is a good time to get caught up. 

This summer is flying by.  I am loving summer in my new home.  I had been warned about extreme heat but so far have not experienced it.  We have had maybe two days of temps above 90 and we didn't even have to turn on the air.  Being up in the mountains we tend to have a nice breeze, and our entire house is covered in oak tress which brings the temp down too.  I know we have some hot weather coming up in late August and September but for now I am enjoying the cool(ish) weather.  

My old, (previously) trusty Ford Escape finally bit the dust.  It died on me twice(once going up the mountain!) and I decided that since I have a potentially dangerous drive without cell phone service in some places, it was best to start looking for a more reliable car.  Joe has been able to get the Escape working again but it's kind of sketchy and we will only drive it in sporadically or in case of emergencies.  

After looking at my options and what I could afford(which wasn't much), we went on the recommendation of a friend to a used car dealer in L.A. who rebuilds cars. And he takes payments, which was a huge deciding factor given that I don't have a lot of spare cash lying around. Or any spare cash, to be exact.  

Sooooo......behold my "new" car!

It's a 2003 Honda Insight. It's in excellent condition and is like new inside. They didn't make very many of these cars and the guy we bought it from buys them and rebuilds them. It's his hobby but since he can't keep all of them he sells them for a very good price.  And like I said, he takes payments.  He has rebuilt hundreds of them! And if something goes wrong I know I can take it to him to fix it without getting ripped off and he knows what's he's doing. I feel very lucky to have found him. 

Not to mention the fact that I'm in love with this car!  It's so fun to drive. It's a two door with only two seats!  It's also a hybrid and it gets between 48-51 miles per gallon!  I honestly didn't believe it when he told us that.  

But I had a chance to test it out over Fourth of July when we went up north to visit my sister and we made it on one tank of gas.  One tank!  Forty bucks was all it cost to get to San Francisco. I see a lot more road trips in our future.   We'll just be traveling light since the cargo area isn't very big. It IS big enough to fit a small dog though.  I made sure to check that, since I hope to get one in the near future.  

Here it is packed for our trip up north.  

That's enough stuff for a whole week!  I was only able to take what was absolutely necessary.  I only took four pairs of shoes!  And you know what?  It was plenty.   I don't wear half the things I usually bring anyway.   

Now I have a tiny house AND a tiny car.  Simplify!

And the most important thing is that it has air conditioning. I haven't had air conditioning in years. It's awesome!  Oh, and the doors open from the OUTSIDE.  Lol.  Also a huge draw.  And it's super fun to drive.  Overall I'm thrilled with it.   

Let's see, what else.  Oh, I got some glasses.  I honestly didn't realize how little I could see until I got me some glasses.  It's amazing!!  I can see the tv!  And the signs at the store!  And the road!!  

That last one is probably the most important.   They are only to see far away.  I still need some progressive bi-focals to wear all the time but the distance was the most problematic for me.  

Here are the ones I chose: 

I love them.  And the best part?  They were free!  That's right, free.   If you go to Coastal.com you can choose your first pair of glasses for free.  And they have a huge selection of free ones to choose from.  Theses were $80 glasses for zero dollars.  

Love.  

Dragon boat practices are plugging along.  We've only missed two practices.  I think that's a record for us!  Our last practice is tomorrow and the races are next week which is unbelievable to me. It always goes by way too fast.  In September it looks like we wil gear up for the Los Angeles races again this year so at least we have that to look forward to.  

We went to a Frida Khalo exhibit with some of our dragon boat members and had a good time.  Well, I was tired and sunburned from practice, but it was interesting and I'm glad we went.  She was an amazing woman!

A couple of months ago I posted this picture on Instagram:

Sorry so small and poor quality. I can't for the life of me find the original image.  

Anyway, a few weeks later I got a response on instagram from Uhaul asking if I would submit it to be a part of their face of uhaul campaign and be in a collage of phitos on the sides of their trucks!

So I went to their website and submitted it and a few weeks later got this e-mail:

That's hard to read, but it says "This photo is on 52 U-Haul trucks in 47 different cities". 

 6 of those are in CA.  So basically I'm famous.  I'd be happy to give you my autograph the next time you see me.  Lol.  

It's not just my picture on the trucks(thank god.  I don't want a billboard sized picture of me anywhere!).  It is in a collage of photos on each side.  One of the locations is in a city miles from my work. I thought about showing up there and trying to snap a picture of it but I thought that might be weird.  

Who am I kidding?   I'm totally sending Joe  over there to take a pic.  

We have gone on a few more hikes and I'm always surprised by how beautiful our surrounding area is. 

I have lived in the new place for four months and the only wildlife we have encountered so far is a skunk who comes out nightly and some raccoons in our trees.  So imagine my surprise when I saw this sign on the door to the laundry room:  

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little freaked out. We just have to be careful and smart and be aware that WE are encroaching on THEM and not vice versa.  

Whew, I think I'm caught up.   I'll be posting a couple of posts of our vacation soon. We had such a good time and I took around 100 photos and it was too much to include here.