Beach.

I remember the old days when going to the beach meant a 32-oz soda in a styrofoam cup, a towel, and a 2-minute car ride. Now it means packing chairs, an umbrella, spf 80 sunscreen (80--you read that right), and a cooler, and it's 4 hours by car. Worth it, though.

A word about the umbrella: I have officially fallen into the demographic that would not dream of going to the beach for longer than 5 minutes without some sort of shade. In fact, I pity people without umbrellas at the beach. Ten-Year's-Ago Me would have laughed in Today Me's face...and then thanked me for trying to keep our skin from looking like fruit leather.

On Friday morning, it looked ominous. 50% chance of rain.

 We tried to keep a positive attitude.

 And then we saw this.

Which I interpreted as God promising not to flood the beach that day. Or that I would find a whole sand dollar. (Broken sand dollars are all over the place in Port Aransas, but never any whole ones.)

Despite some early morning rain, we had two days more or less full of sun. But the rain brought something else that maybe you don't expect at the beach: mosquitoes. Mosquitoes the size of horseflies. They congregated here, at the boardwalk path between our house and the beach. Pretty, eh? Pretty dangerous.

I expect West Nile and/or hepatitis at any time now.

And look--I bought a faux cowboy hat! Am I a cute poseur or what?

Never did find that whole sand dollar.

Still fun anyway. And tan.

Vision.

My mom has more Halloween decorations that Christmas ones. She (and Emily) begin their Halloween-decor shopping around the end of August. So it's probably no surprise that that haunted apple has not fallen far from the tree. Only storage space prevents me from going overboard with Halloween and fall tchotchskies. (Aside: the spell-checker for that word suggested that "crotchless" was what I was trying to spell. That would, indeed, be a different post.)

I bought this at TJ Maxx last week. Stay with me now.

I have nowhere to store this guy, so my plan is to spray paint him bright orange or blue, or even white, so that it can sit out the rest of the year. Owls are very in right now. I just cant' decide if I am making a mistake by painting it--therefore ruining it for subsequent Halloweens--or if I am making it better. Guess there'll be only one way to find that one out.

A few of my favorite things.

Fall-minded these days. Maybe because of my new lovelies.

Fall clothes and shoes are the best colors: orange, brown, turquoise, plum, and emerald. I need some tights--not leggings. Or jeggings, God forbid. I need some tweed. I am in love with this herringbone jacket by Tucker for Target. I need to learn how to wear scarves.

For all this, however, I need to live in a place where it's not still 95 degrees.

But I've already made one pumpkin-spice recipe and the pumpkin-spice latte is back at Starbucks (though I never get those; too many points), so I've mentally made the transition. I sigh with the realization that it'll be another couple months before a true fall wardrobe can be put into effect.

Localvore.

Apparently, George Michael knows of my desire to try to eat more locally grown things, so he's been a real help this week. He's brought in a bird, a couple lizards, a few cicadas, and a mouse. (Well, two mice, I think. The first one looked so scrumptious that he ate it--how do I know? There was a pile of barf under the table, another pile of barf by the door which had, shall we say, remains in it, and then there were the entrails in a separate pile by the chair. So maybe it was not to his taste, but he tried to bring in another one that afternoon for me to sample on my own. I declined. And then subsequently played cat-and-mouse in the backyard, trying to distract GM long enough for the mouse to shimmy away.)

That cat's a real space invader.

There's also a frog that has taken up residence in my succulent pot. Or as GM probably puts it, there's a succulent frog in my pot. I see it in the morning, as we're returning from our 6 A.M. walks, just nestled in the cool soil. (Yes, I keep my succulents so watered that their soil is cool and damp. They are growing like gangbusters.) So far the frog has not been in the house yet, but I have every expectation that it will make that journey (inside GM's mouth).

And you wonder why I often have night terrors related to things crawling on the bed.

Cabin fever: the road from Manteca to Sonora.

I've always been attracted to the tawny golden hills in California. I'm sure I'm not the first person to compare them to the color of a lion's fur, but that's what I think of every time.

The route to the cabin leads from the Bay Area, through the northern end of the Central Valley, and into the Sierra foothills, just about an hour north of Yosemite. We drove through at sunset, and it couldn't have been more picturesque. The light was absolutely golden.

All these pictures were taken out of the car window at 70 mph. Just think of what you could do with a tripod and a more sophisticated camera.

This last one is my favorite. It makes a great desktop background.

Cabin fever: the lake.

Last weekend's trip to the cabin was pretty fun. No ghosts, no humidity--two notable ingredients in a good vacation. The weather was gorgeous for the lake and some jet skiing (with mixed results).

Our friends Tekla and Jennifer came with us, and we all enjoyed the dry air, eating outside, and two, yes, two trips to In-N-Out.

Me, Chris, Emily, Tekla, and Jennifer preparing for a day on the lake

Chris and Tekla on the boat

Kristin and Emily ride the jet ski

Dad, suiting up for his turn on the jet ski after helming the boat all afternoon

Emily, Jennifer, Kristin's boyfriend Bryan, Tekla, and Kristin

Me and Chis on the little island "campsite"

Chris on the jet ski

Turns out, riding a jet ski is very much like riding a motorcycle: lots of balance needed, constant fear of tipping over, an overwhelming sense that you're about to be hit by something bigger at any moment. I kinda felt the same about driving the jet ski as I did the mini-bikes that my dad made us ride at my grandparents' house growing up. I didn't want to, but I also didn't want to be the only one not doing it. And I was uncomfortable the whole time, both times. The picture above of Chris was taken after the jet ski--later found to be faulty, and which broke down the next day--threw Chris and his glasses into the lake. Only one of them emerged.

My omnivorean dilemma.

Farmers' market in Monterey, California

I'm reading a book that is making it very difficult to eat. Thanks to the thoughtful arguments laid out in Eating Animals (by Jonathon Safran Foer, whose fiction I adore), I am thinking it's time to rethink meat.

I've already grown more circumspect about what I eat. The additives, the massive amounts of sugar, butter, oil, and Lord-knows-whatever-else kinds of chemicals and preservatives. It's easy to know that those things aren't good for you. And, relatively speaking, it's easy to find ways to avoid them or reduce them or be smarter about them. (Though I do love sweets. And high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden popsicles--0 points for 2!)

The difficulty comes in meat. Factory farms, as Foer points out, are almost literally the only option for chicken, turkey, pork, and beef. And animals in those farms are drugged up and kept in deplorable, filthy conditions. What kinds of drugs are they taking, and how often? What is the long-term side effect for humans eating them? We know that we don't want to eat non-organic apples or potatoes because those things are chocked full of pesticides...but what of our meat and poultry?

But what if not everyone in your family wants to go vegetarian or go out of their way to find local chickens or beef? And what do you do when you have a child and they get fed hot dogs and nuggets at day care or birthday parties? And how do you eat out? This touches every aspect of life.

Becoming a thoughtful consumer/eater is a lifestyle change in and of itself. But can I overcome my intrinsic American laziness over food? Will I be willing to paying more for humanely raised and processed chicken? (I am a penny-pincher.) Do I want to shop at three different grocery stores every week--one for Chris's food and stuff like Fiber One bars, one for produce, and one for local chicken, eggs, and milk? (I hate grocery shopping, so very thought of this is enough to me want to quit before even starting.)

When I think about the scope if this, it is humbling and frustrating and challenging. But probably necessary. Maybe it begins with baby steps, one thing at a time.

And so we're clear: I will not judge what you or anyone else chooses to eat--I hate it when people do that. I can't even promise that three months from now I'll still feel this way (though I hope my awareness of what I'm eating never leaves me). I'm just trying to get my own thoughts in order here.

Dog days.

There's a certain quality to the sky during the summer in Texas that makes you feel as if you will never survive. It's bleached blue, beaten by clouds that offer no shade, and seems to stretch further than normal. Texas summers always remind me that I am living in the middle of a land mass, hours away from the continent's edge.

The beach. Oh, the sweet beach. I would give anything to hear the tide right now instead of the cicadas whirling in the late afternoon heat.

I have realized that I am going to have to move my after-work work out to before work, once and for all. I am not a morning person. The idea of lacing up my shoes for a 6:15 a.m. walk does not appeal to me. But I suppose it appeals more than walking in heat whose index is currently sitting at 102 degrees. And I just bargained with myself that I would walk tomorrow morning (my usual day of rest from exercise) instead of this afternoon. Anything sounds better than going back outside right now. We'll see how this goes.

This is the time of year where stores are switching to early fall clothes--boots, sweaters, jackets. Meanwhile, I am still looking for another bathing suit for our cruise (Did I mention we're taking a cruise? October, going to Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Key West. Cannot wait.) or for another pair of shorts. I see back-to-school supplies and I want to feel relief that fall is around the corner, but all I really feel is annoyed by seasonal creep. Can't we still want to buy barbecues and umbrellas and sun screen?

We're only half-way through summer, after all.

Plus/minus me.

After a rough four weeks of plateauing, I feel like I need to take an accounting of how I have changed in the last year. By the numbers:

• 1: Year on WW
• 80: Pounds lost
• 40: More pounds to go
• 122/80: My blood pressure, now normal. Much higher a year ago.
• L: Size of some of my tops now
• 10: Number sizes down
• .75: Portion of a mile I can jog without stopping. A year ago, it was maybe .75 feet.
• 90: Average afternoon temperature during my walks, sometimes with a heat index of 100+. I do it anyway.
• 6: Number of days I exercise

It's hard some days to remember that it took years to put this weigh on, and it'll take years to take it off. Why must things take so long? 

To celebrate one year in my new life (careful not to call it a "diet"), I made a delicious berry smoothie for dinner. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, Fiber One vanilla yogurt, and some milk and ice. Perfect for the post-walk sweats--you know the ones, when you're still sweating after you've gotten out of the shower.

Deliciousness.

Has anyone tried the Strawberry, Poppyseed & Chicken salad at Panera yet? Despite the fact that they don't use a comma between "Strawberry" and "Poppyseed" on their menu (the poppyseeds aren't strawberry-flavored; it's a list, so there should be a comma), it is straight-up delicious. Strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mandarin oranges, pecans, and chicken in a really light poppyseed dressing. I am in love. And only 280 calories.