'Tis the Season???

This year I am really homesick for snow for the holidays. Last year, November and December in Southern California were really rainy and cool, which I liked, but this year, the weather's been warm and dry until a few days ago. All the sun and short-sleeve weather was making it hard to get in the Christmas spirit! Snow isn't likely in this part of the country, so I've had to find other ways to make it feel like Christmas.

The Christmas light displays on the houses do bring on that festive feeling if I ignore the fact that that it's still too warm for a sweatshirt some nights, and that the grass is still green. There is something to be said for being able to go for a leisurely run through the neighborhood to take in the light shows. One block in the neighborhood even has all their lights coordinated to music!

In Minnesota, living in the country, we always put Christmas lights on our house, but no one could just drive by to see them - they really were just for us. And the lights really just served as a compliment to all the beautiful white snow. Now, with no snow to set the mood, the pressure is on to do something more spectacular than just line the roof with twinkling colors.

I do get excited about the Christmas lights in Southern California, and I can't wait to get back to Minnesota to have snow for holidays, but baking Christmas cookies with the neighbor girls while listening to Christmas music helped to bring on the season as well....

Where Did MY Beach Go?!?!

I never thought about the tides, or how they might affect my running, until the tide pushed me off my running course. I know about tides. I know about the moon's affect on the tide. And I know the tides cause the water to come up higher on the beach at different times. But for some egocentric reason, when I found my new favorite running place, it never occurred to me that it wouldn't be just the way I found it (and wanted to to stay) day after day after day. 

"Charlie" and "Charlie"

I love running on MY beach. The thought of it is one of the few things that gets my butt out of bed early enough in the morning to go for a run before work. I love the wide, flat stretch of beach that is perfect for barefoot running. I love the surfers bobbing on the water as the sun comes up. And I love finishing the run on the pier lined with pelicans (they are ALL named "Charlie" according to the fishermen). 

This was exposed beach
two weeks ago...

Imagine my shock and dismay when I went to my favorite running place this past week, when the moon was little more than a sliver, only to find the wide, flat portion of the beach under water. I tried to run on the upper part of the beach, but it means running at an angle and my aging ankles don't care for that. So this week I had to resort to running on the sidewalk above the beach, catching brief glimpses of my beach when the tide rolls out, just before it rolls back in to cover the sand and splash against the rocks. 

I'm coming to terms with the fact that my beach is subject to the forces of nature, and not to take for granted the perfect mornings when the tide is low and the beach is prime for running. Running on the sidewalk is still a good run, considering it's right next to the beach (or right next to the water when the tide is really high). Even from a bit of a distance, I still love the sound of the waves, the colors as the sun rises, and the surfers bobbing in the waves. 

There's something about the ocean that draws a person to it (Jimmy Buffet knows that and has tried to describe it in a thousand ways), so even a lousy day is good at the beach. And even when I have to run on the sidewalk instead of the sand, the view is hard to beat...

Morning storm rolling in...

FINALLY Home Again...

Just over nine months ago, I posted a blog about the fire we had in our garage at our house, and now (just over nine months later), we are FINALLY back in our house!

Night of the fire...

In my wildest dreams, I NEVER would have guessed that we would be out of our house for the better part of 2012 while waiting for insurance to get settled and for the work to be done. There's still some work left to do, but it is mostly on the outside of the house and we were finally able to move back into our house at the end of October.



Front of the house after garage repaired.

It's taken until now to get unpacked and settled back in, and this weekend I am finally really enjoying being back home again! (I noticed I'm saying "finally" a lot in this post, but the word seems appropriate because it has been one heck of a long wait to FINALLY be back home!)




Inside of the garage after fire...

We love our neighborhood! We love our neighbors! We love our house! We love our backyard! So it is such a relief to be back! We moved to California 16 months ago, but we've only been in our house for less than 5 months of that time because of waiting to move in after first arriving in CA, and then because of waiting for repairs after the house fire. After everything we have been through, we are really going to appreciate every moment in our house and not take it for granted.


Inside of garage after repairs...

After living in a different neighborhood for the last nine months, we realize how much fate was on our side when we bought the house we did. The house that the insurance company rented for us while our house was being repaired was in a neighborhood with bigger houses, but smaller yards. In Califronia, the back yard is like an extension of the house and it's used year round, so I will give up space in the house in order to have a usable back yard any day!



Inside of garage after repairs
(with empty moving boxes stacked up for recycling)

The other neighborhood was also not nearly as friendly as this one. We've only lived in this neigborhood for five out of the last 16 months, but we have made GREAT friends, and all the neighbors say hi and wave when they see us. In the rental neighborhood, we rarely saw anyone, and we only spoke to one of our neighbors a couple times over the entire nine months. It felt like such a sterile neighborhood with no personality or warmth - only barking neighbor dogs and letters from the association because someone let their little dog poop on our front patch of grass while we were gone on vacation and we didn't pick it up fast enough!


Inside of house after smoke damage repaired...
 

Enough about the rental neighborhood - the only thing that matters now is that we are back home to a freshly painted house with brand new garage doors. We still have some work to do to make it completely home (pictures on the wall, etc), but I'm loving every moment here.