Along Came a Spider...

It was the first few weeks of Elyas's life, and we were still trying to figure out how to eat. We had been trying so hard to have a successful feeding that nothing was going to stop us. As I sat in my rocker and fed Elyas, I felt something brush against my bare shoulder. When I looked over to see what it was, there was a spider dangling next to my face. I immediately jumped up with Elyas and ran to the other side of the room, luckily I had a breast friend pillow and I was able to keep him latched as I ran. Well I stood and watched the spider from across the room and guess what he did, he went back up to the ceiling and ran toward us and began to repell back down to us. Up I jumped again and ran back across the room and follow he did. He was chasing me!!! Finally I went back and sat down on the bed and just watched the spider. From across the room he came down again and just sat and watched us. What a creepy little thing! He hung there for a while before he retracted back toward the ceiling and ran into the light fixture. I sat there and watched that spot for a long time, with an occasional sweep of the whole ceiling.

The next day as I was feeding Elyas (in the rocker) my eyes were glued to the ceiling and walls. After scoping the room for a while I relaxed. Right when I relaxed something fell on my head, I flicked it off and quickly looked to see what it was; there was a huge, weird looking bug! It was crawling across my bed. I was freaking out but I couldn't get up to get it, because Elyas and I had been having such a hard time learning to breast feed. As I plotted what I would do, I saw something in the corner of my eye. I turned my head and saw an ugly black spider crawling across Elyas's clean clothes in the closet. Was it the same spider as the day before? No, he was a different size and color.

Okay, I thought, this was getting weird. What was going on? Where the heck were all these bugs coming from? Could they smell my baby? Why were they so attracted to us? Ahhhh!

Is my story over? No, here is the worst, creepiest part!

So Elyas and I were doing a feeding session in bed. This was the best most successful session so far! It was comfortable for both of us. I wasn't in pain and he wasn't struggling to get or stay latched. As we laid there, to my horror I saw something big and black crawl slowly from the back of my baby's head toward his face and mine. I quickly flicked the spider off his head, but then became anxious and creeped out; I had no idea where he had gone. I lay there feeding Elyas and feeling very uncomfortable when there again I saw some black creepy legs slowly crawling over the folds of the blanket toward us. I grabbed the blanket around pinched it over the spider and crushed and rubbed the blanket together. When I separated the blanket there was no marking, no proof that the spider had been crushed, which meant he had gotten away and was somewhere in or on the bed still. I began lifting the covers and looking for the spider. I couldn't find him anywhere and hoped that the baby would soon be done eating so I could jump up and get out of the bed.

Did I ever find it? No. Has anything like this happened since? No. Thank goodness, it only occurred that week and I haven't seen a spider or bug since.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

SNOW DAY

Wow what a day! An unusual and extremely fun one for Oregonians. Why's that? Well, snow is not very common here, and when it does snow, it is usually gone within an hour. However, that was not the case today.

My niece came over today to announce the snow and get me to come out and play, and so Chris, Dominique, and I all had a very fun snow day. We did many fun things together:

We had a snowball fight.


We went for a winter wonderland walk in the woods.
















Then we went to the park and built a snowman on a park bench; however, by then my camera died and so I couldn't take anymore pictures.
It was such a fun day. The snow fell for a long time with great big flakes. It painted the whole town white and you could see the occasional car go by, but not as many as you would have seen on a clear day. No, today was a special day, because it felt as if time stood still so that we could enjoy winters play day.
When we got home we snuggled up on the couch together with big warm quilts and watched Christmas movies while we ate popcorn and candy.

Ah; the perfect cozy winter day.

Camping Fiasco Part One

Ah, the great outdoors, my favorite place to be.

I decided that one of the things I wanted to do most this year was go camping.

Chris had a routine doctors appointment set on the 7th of August, in Eugene. We decided that after his appointment we would head east on highway 126 towards Bend to find a good camping spot. However, we didn't expect Chris's doctor visit to last for over 2 hours.

Since the Doctor appointment took most of our daylight, we hurried with our shopping trip, choosing only that nights worth of groceries and supplies.

I was getting pretty nervous because I knew we only had about 2 maybe 3 good hours of daylight left to find a prime camping spot.

We knew that there were tons of camping sites that you had to pay a fee to camp out that way, but we had high hopes that we would find a free site, since we didn't have any money.

We searched and searched finding sites that were just to rocky and that would not be enjoyable to camp in. We took the Blue River Reservoir Rd hoping we would find something soon. If we had to pay for a site it would have to be cheap, so we crossed our fingers.

When we found the perfect camping spot we were so excited. It was everything we had hoped for. A huge site nestled in the woods with a trail that led down to the river. It was so beautiful and quiet; it was absolutely perfect. We walked around scoping out our site and looking for a sign or something that would tell us how much it would cost us. We thought about $5, maybe $10 at the most.

Well, along comes Mr. ranger, and he approaches us like we are two delinquents trying to steal a free night of camping.

We approached him with big smiles, happy that we'd found such a cool place, and asked him how much it was and where we could pay.

He sternly replied, "You realize this is a double lot don't you?"

We shook our heads. Of course we didn't, it looked regular to me.

He proceeded to scowl and tell us that we would have to pay him $25 if we were planning on staying here.

We nodded and smiled at him and then exchanged looks of defeat with each other. We were crushed. This was not our spot.

As we packed up to move, we asked him how much it would be to camp in a smaller lot and where we would find them. He pointed up the road and told us we'd have to pay $14 a night, and we’d have to pay by morning if we were planning to stay past noon the next day.

We eagerlessly ventured toward the more affordable lots. Every lot available was extremely small and sandwiched between huge parties of people. The best lot had a big pile of dog poo at the entrance to greet us. This was not our idea of a camping trip.

A knot began building up in my throat as I felt the camping trip begin to fall apart; we were both getting very tired and feeling pretty defeated. Neither of us liked the idea of paying $14 to sleep in the wild, in the middle of a large and very loud party. Shouldn't camping be free? We are sleeping on the ground under the stars after all.

We dug in our car for every trace of change that we could, we found just enough to stay. As we sat tired and frustrated filling out the form to stay, I let Chris know that I REALLY did want to camp, but this wasn’t exactly what I had had in mind. For $14 we had better be happy with the location and this was just not the right place.

We agreed that we were done searching for a site, it had gotten way to dark, and the options were to either stay here or go home. The knot in my throat grew bigger, because I knew if we stayed we would not have a good time. We voted the camping trip over and we would just have to try again on a different day, with an early start. We once again packed up the car and began to leave the reservoir.

On the way out, we stopped to view the river and watch the moon rise. It was absolutely beautiful. Even though we weren't able to camp that night, at least we were able to explore a little bit of the beautiful Blue River Reservoir.


That was attempt number one, and by golly we tried again, but that is another story.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/willamette/recreation/camping/index.html

http://www.hoodoo.com/mona.htm

Come Sail Away

Early Thursday morning Chris and I excitedly prepared for the day ahead of us. We had been invited by his father to go sailing with him in his 26' sailboat. So comfortably it fits about 4 people, anymore would just be too much. Luckily it was just us three, so it was perfect.

Before we got started we decided to grab a bite to eat. I was intimidated by the menu, as everything was greasy and pretty expensive. A Chilli cheese dog was probably the cheapest item, running at $7. My fear was that I would eat it and then get uncontrolable gas out on the boat. How embarrassing. I got past my fear though and gave into hunger, ordering myself a chilli cheese dog and some water. I am proud to say, when I was finished I was not wearing a trace of chilli on my clothes or face. There's a first time for everything.

We finished our meals and proceeded to the boat. There was a good couple of inches between the dock and the boat, with water to catch my fall if I slipped. I grabbed hold of the boat and desperately pulled myself up onto the boat.

Chris and his dad worked on getting it sailable for the day. I sat back and watched, thinking that if anything should happen to them, I'd be up a creek without a paddle.

As we pushed off, a dragonfly that had followed us to the boat kept landing and keeping me company. It had a large body and huge bug eyes. It even had a great big smile. It reminded me of a cartoon, because it seemed to have a bit of a personality as it stared at me with it's funny smile.

We putted along the still water in the columbia river, not a trace of wind for our sails. We motored up the river for quite a while before we decided to bring out the sails to try our luck at catching some wind. We slowly floated back down the way we had just come from, pulled by the current in the water alone. A hot windless day. My feet felt as if they had caught fire. I had overdressed thinking it would be cold. I was melting in front of Chris's dad, trying to remain smiling and to appear as if I didn't have a problem in the world, as I stealthily would wash away the sweat when he wasn't looking.

We finally decided to call it a day when we all started melting away in the hot sun. We put the sails away and secured the ropes and slowly motored back to the marina. A nice breeze from the movement produced by our motor cooled our hot skin. I looked over and again noticed our little dragonfly buddy.


Our little dragonfly looked as if he was were riding on a waverunner or a jet ski, wind blowing on his face. He had the biggest smile I'd seen, like he knew something I didn't. How odd that he had a smile. He was facing me as I watched him, and the strangest thing happened. His whole head cocked to one side as if he was asking me what I was looking at. My mouth dropped open and I looked up at Chris to see if he'd seen it too. He had. We both started laughing. I've never seen an insect do that before.

Just the simple human motion made me ponder things in nature. I began thinking about reincarnations, like what if it was Grandpa Dick coming by to give us one of his big smiles and let us know he was ok now.

I once saw a movie where a simple dragonfly was actually a fairy, and until the little girl admitted to the dragonfly that she knew it was really a fairy, it stayed concealed in its insect form. Once she let on that she knew what it really was a beautiful fairy emerged and revealed itself to her. Magic hidden in simple forms all around us, waiting to be revealed to those who believed.

The world is full of magic, and whether we believe or not is up to us. Nature itself is magical, but what if the unexplained and supernatural exist. How exciting to think of a hidden world within our own world disguised as a regular creature such as a dragonfly or a garden spider. What if a gracefull gazelle was really an elf in disguise. Yes, what if. Life is more fun when the question "what if" is asked. Think of all the possiblities.

Okay, so back to reality. The day was not a successful sailing trip, however it was a success in that we were able to get away from reality for a short while and ponder in each others company. It was a peaceful, even though hot, and relaxing experience.