Girl from the North County

Gosh, thanks for all the comments. I didn't think you would be checking my blog anymore, since my posting has been so sporadic.

Life is good, but I'm still adjusting. It's hard to get used to how far away everything is; I drive 15 miles in either direction to shop or get my mail. The post office won't deliver to my house because you need 7 addresses within a mile and we're the only one within 3 miles. We finally got trash pickup straightened out, but no curbside recycling. SD just wants to throw everything away, but I can't bring myself to do that, so cardboard and bottles are stacking up in the garage. I finally found a place that will take all our recyclables, so now I just need to pack up the truck and bring it in.

The most frustrating thing has been the lack of customer service. It took 14 days for FedEx to deliver a package that had been sitting in a local warehouse for the past 10. And that's with me calling every day and burning up cell phone minutes. Oh yeah, I don't have a land line, because the telephone company wanted 50K to bring one over. There have been other customer service issues, but this post is rapidly descending into a rant.

And I don't want to rant because really, I LOVE IT HERE! It's quiet, peaceful and beautiful. When we come home at night, there are a billion stars out. On any given day, I'll see deer, hawks, or bobcats. My favorite time to be here, though, is sunset. The sunsets from my deck are spectacular!

I haven't been to a movie, but I have gone to see the elephant seals at nearby Piedras Blancas. It's the breeding season and the beaches are covered with males, females, and babies. They first starting showing up around 1993--locals were noticing that the "rocks" on the beach were moving. It's an awesome sight to see.

Oh yeah, I've also been running! I'm incredibly behind on my Big Sur 21 mile training, but right on schedule for the San Diego Rock and Roll marathon that I signed up for last week. The running club I'm with are training for their first marathon, so I figured I'd do it too. I'm not even going to try for time at Big Sur, but it would be nice to finish. I easily ran for two hours on Saturday and that gave me some confidence that I'll be ready. It was the longest I've run since Nike in October. I don't know if I'll be running a 20 miler before Big Sur, but I'm hoping I'll at least get up to 18 miles before I have to taper.

My running coach is a personal trainer and I'm taking some lessons from her. I'm also taking a sculpt class. I've been woefully lacking in muscle strength and I'm hoping the weight training will make me a stronger runner. No more 120 pound weakling for me! Charlie Atlas, here I come. :-)