All Decked Out

FINAL UPDATED PHOTO ADDED MAY 12

This is one of those rare blog posts that I will be updating for a while. Progress is being made on the rooftop deck!

About seventeen feet long and just shy of five feet wide, it is not the best size, but it is one of the best parts of the house. 

The above and below photos are the true "before."  

I was dying to cut the section of fence off that was up against the house. That gained me about two feet under the eaves. It drastically enlarges the space visually, if not so much physically. Also cut down was the pipe. It's now much shorter and will be creatively covered... (stay tuned)...

There are a lot of benefits to having a friend that used to own his own construction company. One of them is that he knows what to look for at the lumber store. He originally told me a certain (*cough* higher than I was hoping for) price for the cedar, but when he got there a new-ish product was out - same quality but about half the price (insert happy dance here).

This is the deck now, over half done. The supports are almost all done (just a small frame that needs to go under the eaves), so the rest won't take long. 

Update #1 - April 21:
Construction is done!

May 12 - It's been done for a couple weeks now, and other than needing a couple more cushions, it's done. If the weather would would just start cooperating! It had better soon - first party is planned for next weekend!.

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How'd I do on decor? 

Below are a few inspiration pictures for decor once I reach that stage. I'm thinking I'll go with a Moroccan theme. It doesn't necessarily fit the rest of the house (which is more beach-y, if I had to assign it a theme), but I'm in love with Moroccan decor.

I like the color and bed idea in this one, but especially the greenery. I'll most likely put all my potted plants up there, because it gets more sun than anywhere else around the house. 

This one - love the colorful outdoor rug. Don't know that I'll be able to find anything like it, though.

I have always loved lanterns like this. It takes much willpower for me to walk past them in the stores. Now I won't have to. Except I'll probably go with much smaller ones, since there are no high places for me to hang any from. 

This has always been my favorite Moroccan patio. It's Kim's design, of course. I love the blue draped fabric, and plan to do something like that under the eaves. I've also been in love with those string curtains (which she cut the arches out of) since the first time I saw this episode on HGTV, but again, nowhere to hang them from.  Don't know what else I'll adopt from this space, but I'm thinking possibly the punched metal with quatrefoils which she did in this space (you can't really see them (on the right) unless you really know what you're looking for).

Alright, check back in a week or so...hopefully the weather will cooperate enough between now and then that we can get it done so I can get some more pix up.

My First Flatiron

No, I'm not talking about something for my hair. I like my curls, thankyouverymuch. 

A 30 to 40 minute hike gets you to the bottom of the first Flatiron in Boulder. Relatively short, but you gain about 900 feet from the trail head in that time. Then the climb is around 1,000 feet.

It  doesn't look like much. 

But it took us 5 hours, car to car. 

Seven pitches. 

 

It was a fairly easy climb. 

On the first two pitches (meaning a 60-meter rope length) we only places 2 pieces of gear, and on the second two, none. I think we only placed 1 on the final three pitches. I could be wrong about that, but point being it's an easy climb if you're climbing with only one or two (or no) pieces for protection.

Top of the first pitch. 

Top of the second.

Top of the third.

Top of the 4th. 

 Top of the 5th.

Top of the 6th.

Yep, that's me (in the circle) climbing.

Top of the seventh. Basically at summit. 

Rope management. Some people hate it. I love it. 

And it obviously means I made it down.

But that's where the story begins. While the climb up was fairly easy and uneventful, my rap off the summit was not quite so easy. It was extremely windy up there, and I was chilly, so I decided to rap off first. We tied knots in the rope - I prefer to knot them for safety reasons. It means if you accidentally misjudge distance and get all the way to the end of the rope, you're not going to plunge off the end of it. On this day, however, what was meant to keep me safe caused all sorts of issues. The wind whipped both ends of the rope as we tossed them over. They both landed in the same crevice down below and far to my right where, crazily enough, both knots lodged tightly. Of course, I didn't know this until I was halfway through my rappel, at which point there was nothing to be done but wait for my partner to rap down on someone else's rope, climb up to where mine was stuck, and work at it to get it free (which was not without perils of its own). Meanwhile, I got to just hang there. Not that I mind that in and of itself - dangling in midair is really quite fun - but hanging on the rope isn't necessarily a good thing.

Lesson Learned: Sometimes the thing you think you're doing to keep yourself safe may actually end up causing you more problems in the end. Every situation is different and you can't judge them all by the same standards.

Boys On Rocks

Finally got my kiddos on the rocks today! 

I've been waiting for them to want to climb, and they did today. They both had fun and want to do it again. YES! 

The little guy had a hard time - at first he was wearing climbing shoes but they were way too big for him and hindered his climbing. 

 When we put his regular shoes back on him, he took off!

    
Benjamin ended up wearing adult-sized climbing shoes - that kid is going to be tall

when he grows into those feet.

He got all the way to the anchor, and neither one of them were scared being lowered down, which is often harder than climbing up. 

Mama's proud. And happy to have shared one of my greatest loves with them.

Rules and Revelations

I have been really struggling lately.

In the last few months I have been through a car accident, bought a house, ended a relationship, my boss (who I adored) resigned, I got really sick (lost ten pounds and ended up in urgent care getting pumped full of fluids and missing too many days of work), and that's just the big stuff.

Today I had a lovely afternoon of laughter with my best friend from high school. Typical of when we're together. But we also get into the nitty-gritty of life, and the conversation often goes from serious to funny to serious over and over.

She asked me about lessons I learned from the relationship that ended. At first I could only come up with two, but as the day went on I kept saying, "Oh, that's something else I learned..." and ended up with a good half dozen or more.

They were not painless lessons. They still hurt. And they have affected the way I've gone into other relationships (not saying there's anything serious going on, just saying I'm relating to men differently right now). And actually, most of that is for the better. Because most of it has been of the "I'm not going to make that mistake again" kind.

But then, on my drive home, I had a revelation.

A revelation about the bad lesson I'd subconsciously learned from him.

I'd inadvertently learned to build walls. I've become skeptical about the intrinsic goodness of people (read: men). I've been going into things so cautiously, so afraid that I'm going to get treated the same way over and over. Not that caution is a bad thing, but if the reason is fear and results in a closed-off self, that's not good.

Because I'm really not a closed person. I'm usually very open, very comfortable in my own skin, very full of life. I don't feel like that right now, and I don't like that. I don't like to think that he changed my personality a bit. Don't like that even though I took back control of my life by breaking it off with him, he's still affecting me. Because I wouldn't be so untrusting if he hadn't treated me the way he did. He made me feel worthless, because he so easily discarded me. Not once, but many times, in many subtle ways.

Revelation #1 - Simply, that he's still affecting me, and adversely. 

I need to be done with that. 

I need to get back to being me. 

The person who believes that there are good men out there.

That not everyone has ulterior motives. 

That there are people who are compatible and compassionate and appreciative of the presence of the people in their lives.

This has long been one of my favorite quotes. 

But I've not been living like it lately. I've been holding onto the trunk of the tree, shaking, afraid of walking out on that limb.

When the truth is, I believe in love.
I believe in this happening:

That there are people that can kiss your soul without wounding it.

Had another conversation with a new acquaintance lately. About rules. Eff the rules, is what we were saying. But as the conversation progressed, we realized that as much as we want to act like there aren't, there are rules. Even if they're just the ones we make personally.

Revelation #2 - I'd begun living by rules I don't agree with, and feeling trapped by them.

What rule says I have to remain hurt? Who says I can't just get right back out there and be OK? Where is it written that I have to "be on my own" for a certain length of time before I am "ready"? (What the hell does that mean, anyway? Who decides what "ready" is?) It's not that I feel the need to jump into another relationship, though if it happens, I'm open. But it's not going to happen if I'm constantly closed or crying or cynical.

And then another friend sent me this:

And I thought, "Hell yes." Break them like an artist.
So maybe this isn't the turning of a new leaf completely. I have no doubt I will continue to be affected by not just that relationship ending, but the last few that have. But I want to be done letting it own me. I want to stop letting it define things. I may not know exactly what I'm doing or how to go about it, but I know what I want the end to look like, and that gives me direction.

Even if I have to wing it for a while.

Lesson Learned:

BFF

There's nothing like a best friend. 

 Twenty-seven years of history here. 

 

It's amazing how alike we are. 

How well we get each other.

How our lives parallel. 

If we're lucky, we see each other once a year. 

Nowhere near enough.

Love that woman!

Ouray 2013

I spent three days in Ouray last weekend. I'd not been ice climbing since last year. It's so different than being on rock. It's much more strenuous. It also feels much more secure to me. I think part of that is having three points in the ice all the time. The chances of falling don't seem as great. I've not spent a whole lot of time on ice, but I've never felt like I couldn't climb something.

The first day we dropped three lines in the Schoolroom area of the ice park. The ice park meaning the canyon in Ouray. They drip water from above every evening to create the ice walls. The schoolroom area is maybe 20-25 meters high, and the three lines we did (anchors #9-11) were probably all WI3s.

Amazingly, I climbed 7 times that first day (four in the Schoolroom and then 3 in the New Funtier area). That's a first for me. Even rock climbing my norm is five to six routes a day (with the exception of an 8-pitch route I did in Frisco). 

On a curtain.

The gang on the walkway above the Schoolroom. There were 7 of us, with me being the only female. There was another girl along, Sarah, but she stayed behind with her 18-month-old every morning and by the time she headed out to climb, I was done.

Some of the guys being funny with their lunches.

The second day was spent climbing the Five Fingers, where the routes are more like 40 meters long. It was cooold and snowy all day.

You can see guys on all three lines we dropped in this area. I climbed the route to the very right first, and worked my way left.

The first part of the climbs are extremely vertical. Here I am having just finished that part. Heading up the lower angled section to the column.

 And now I'm on the column.

I ended up belaying two guys out of the canyon when we were done that afternoon, then climbing out myself. I climbed out on the far left route, thinking it was the easiest of the three. I found out the next morning that the other two were WI4s but the one I climbed out on was a WI5. Sheesh. No wonder I was exhausted.

The word of the day in this section was "Big Ice!" When we first rappelled into the canyon it was pristine, a fresh layer of snow covering everything. By the time we left it looked like a battlefield - ice that had broken off and came careening down the walls was everywhere. We were dodging chunks all day. 

This was also the day Nathan climbed after me (the middle route) and found a hair that he accused me of leaving behind. How, I don't know - I had on my hat, hoodie, and helmet! One of the other guys joked that that's how meticulous he is about his climbing..

Nathan belaying me out of the canyon on the killer WI5.

Our last day dawned sunny and bright. It was the only warm day we had and I had to leave after just two climbs to drive back. Oh well.

The guys I climbed with were a lot of fun. I had only known one of them before going, but seeing how well I climb always makes me "one of the guys" pretty quickly.
*Jonathan, on the left, and I ended up having an amazing connection - he's known my best friend from college since she was like ten or something.
*Nathan, second from right, is "in charge" of the Adventures in Odyssey at Focus on the Family.
*John, in the green, is an award-winning composer.
*Eric, in the back, is an architect, one of the nicest guys, and seems to have a propensity for dropping or spitting hot foods/liquids on the floor.
*Dan, in the orange, was, I think, the only guy to do any leading that weekend.
*John, on the far right, is an AFA grad and the youngest of the group. 
*Tommy, the only one I knew before the trip, gave me crap pretty much the whole weekend. He commented the first day that he couldn't believe a girl could climb better than he could. The second day in the Five Fingers area there were portions he couldn't even do. That was the day he started telling me, "You rock!" every couple hours. I finally looked at him after one of these comments and said, "Tommy, it's just what I thrive at. Nature is my telephone booth."