Raige Creations

Back in the mountains, I love it. I forgot how lovely the summer is here, and finally the weather is gorgeous. The flowers are out and everything is green. Wildflowers My musing this weekend are as simple as enjoying two of my favorite things:  Walking and  Bread It has been tough for me to let myself take the time to get a few walks in ~ yes I was too busy to get walks in and I know that is just an excuse but sometimes you just gotta take a break. From everything.  And any more than that, I just do not want to dwell on. Also, I am not feeling too wordy today, so will just let the pictures speak for me. The road to the RAD and the bakery nestled in the district with the bread (no beer for me)  A river crossing - it sure did look muddy today probably from the recent rains. Bread and soft pretzel - yumminess. River crossing heading home - lovely even if still muddy. At some point, we may be those paddle boarders in the river, if you look close enough they are ...

Almost finished with my first ever 2 week vacation, and I finally am unwound and reminded of life without work taking up all my thoughts and time. It took more than a few days to unwind. And more still to tackle some things that I had let slip. I don't know what it was that gave me the motivation to do that 2.5 mile walk (with hubby!) this morning, not rushed. Then I did 30 minutes of yoga after the walk, no rush. I also wanted to get a swim in before the dreaded grocery trip that was needed, but not as dreaded as usual because I wasn't in a big rush.  I had spinach and sugar snap peas and almonds for lunch, with a nice lime in my water - healthy! (It makes no difference that this was all that was left after throwing out the rest of the rotted spinach - it sat in the fridge untouched for a week and a half.)  Lunch - better than it sounds, especially with a little poppy seed dressing A short rain shower delayed me, and I leisurely started some laundry. Then, for the first time ...

 Talk about a break in blogging. Yes, guilty again. But as I sit here, procrastinating on writing my paper for my Leadership and Management class, pondering the last few days, I can only say life happens in the little things.  I try not to over-share. I like my privacy, and try to only share the lessons learned and not too many of the details of how I got there. But the last week has been a lesson in the little things. It is the little milestones, the little every day things, the little (but often seemingly huge) interruptions to normal life. The little things help you see how lucky you are. So here and now I will share, perhaps over-share, my latest little interruption, and how the little things made all the difference. A little backstory, I had a milestone this year. I reached an age where my doctors said, "Oh, you are ' this age ' (Not 37, which I stayed at for a number of years, nor 42, a nice number I stayed at for a number of years as well. A big milestone, the big o...

  A difficult path, not taken this day from Raige Creations T his is not the first time I have thought about paths , the paths we take , the path of living , and choosing paths . It is not the first time a path has intrigued me . Heck, Walking on Wednesday is all about walking on paths.  This path above is one, on this particular day, I chose NOT to take. We have before. But this day I was not up for it. It just seemed too tough.  And that is okay. Some days we just cannot walk down a difficult path.  I was going through some stresses at work, which I cannot go in to details about. I can only say some days as a manager are frustratingly tough. It will work itself out, but dang the emotions of the past couple day took me down some ugly paths.  And next time, I WILL go down the path pictured above, as it leads to somewhere totally different, and some days you just need to mix it up a bit.  But this day, the same old path was just fine. There was comfort the...

Wow I haven't blogged since December. Sorry folks. I am still getting used to the whirlwind that work is. It is non-stop from the moment I walk in until I force myself to leave as close to 5pm as I can. Yes, it is difficult to get out of there at 5, after skipping lunch and working straight through. It is so busy, so many different things happening, so exhausting. After December, which was full of vacation days and holidays, I have had to adjust to full work weeks with full staff in office. Mostly this adjustment has been dozing off shortly after dinner, if we actually have dinner..... Yes, some nights we don't have dinner. Just snack. I had carrots and dip one night for dinner. I found we had lots of carrots and hardly ever ate them, so carrots and dip for dinner. Which is a nice lead in to the state of our refrigerator. Let me just say we could not take the smell any longer. Finding the smell was the tough part. Long story short, a full cleaning of the fridge was necessary. T...

  Thanks Pinterest We now have got three walks in over the past five days. We took a long break, but hopefully this is the start of a regular thing. And today, I realized how much I missed it. Every time we get back to walking, we wonder why we stopped. It is really such a simple thing, going for a walk in Nature. Why do we find so many excuses not to do it?  Even they days you get rained on are wonderful - the other day, in fact, we were soaked. Even the grey and cloudy days are beautiful.  Even a grey day is beautiful I knew things were starting to feel better when I wanted to take a picture. Sure, that is not the best photo. It was cloudy, it was the 'wrong' time of day, it was a rough and not brilliant sea. We hadn't seen much that was particularly interesting. But still, the waves look cool, the breeze was refreshing, and the grey is a bit soothing. I realized I wasn't feeling nature, until then. Figuring I may as well take as shot, seeing it through the lens (so t...

Who would have thought I would find my spirit animal on a walk? Is it really my spirit animal, or just a chance sighting I thoroughly enjoyed? We have been doing well getting our walks in. Oh yes, I have a walking partner now! I finally got hubby to start exercising. Even if i go a slower pace than when I am alone, it is great to have some company. Our walks bring us to the North Sound. If you follow me , you should recognize the views. I try to take a picture every day, thinking it would be interesting to see the slight differences each day. Honestly I think some days are just so beautiful, other are more subdued. A different view each time really. But perhaps I am the only one that finds it that way, as the moods often highly affect my interpretation of the views. And I may be the only one who never tires of these same place views. As we are still on  lock-down , and the beaches are still closed, I must find interest with what is in walking distance as we are not t...

As has been the common popular birthday present for me, this year again I got new running shoes. Yes, I have gone on about new running shoes before.... here .....and here ....to share just a couple.... I am doing more walking instead of running these days, as my legs keep hurting when I tried to run lately, probably from my worn out shoes. So, that is the reason this year I was absolutely thrilled with these new shoes. They hug my heels so nicely and offer some great support for my overpronation and thus will help my sketchy knees and achy legs. My awesome new shoes My double excitement that we could find these shoes on island, where I could try them on and see that they fit nicely. I won't mention the price I had to pay for this convenience, as it was my birthday and I reasoned it was okay to overpay for such wonderful convenience and totally enjoy the instant gratification of getting these shoes. No more waiting for a 'mule' to bring them down to me after ordering...

I had never tried a treadmill before. Yes that is right, never. I was always the "nah, I prefer walking outside anyways" type, even though I had never really had access to such things as treadmills. But, now I DO have access, and I tried it. Treadmills these days are much more tech savvy than they used to be. And I am not very tech savvy. So the first day I tried one, I unsuccessfully linked to the workout app recommended. I decided to just start and try again at the end of the workout. There were workouts to choose from, but being my first day and a bit strapped for time, I just picked a time and speed and went for it. A bit boring. No. Really boring. Just keep staring at the wall? Look out the window at the parking lot and office building...wow. Riveting. I kept going, looking at the screen at some generic path with computer generated people I was passing. I noticed a cord hanging there, after sufficiently bored with the path and computer people. Thinking, ...

I am so glad it is weekend. I have been looking forward to it since we moved in our place last week. So today, I thoroughly enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee. Then I decided I had put off walking/jogging for too long now. And oh yeah, I signed up for a 5k later this month....so really have to get back in shape for that. So off I went, excited to explore our new neighborhood. It is so quiet, little activity here and there. Very nice walking with a jog mixed in. Then I got to these trees. I stopped, and listened. Casuarina Pines. If you haven't been near Casurina Pines when the wind blows, you are missing out. They make the most beautiful sound. A sort of whoosh sound, just so subtle and actually quite relaxing. It is like if you breathed out with your lips a little puckered to try to make a wind sound. These trees make it for you. As long as there is even a slight breeze, the sound of the wind is amplified through these trees and you are treated to a wonderful ...

After a very active morning (a few weeks ago now...) - a 3 mile mostly walk with little jogs mixed in, 15 minute morning yoga routine, and a 30 minute yoga workshop (to help me step through Down Dog , which I can't do very well) - I sat there on my yoga mat deeply thinking. Thinking, " I am calm, it is a beautiful day really, and oh - a donut hole would be good!" and then I shared my desire for doughnut holes after all that good-for-me activity. I was struck first that I wanted to share such a thing. With whom, exactly, do I want to share these accomplishments mixed with signs of weakness? Facebook?? Really??? No, not really. I realized. I have purged my Facebook friends to mostly real friends and famlily (even if it is distant cousins I haven't seen since I was a kid and friends of whom some I haven't seen since High School, and creative friends that I have not met in person but feel a closeness with via venues like Facebook {which initself is quite stra...