Sunset Magazine January

I have posted January's meal and day trip reviews in my new blog From Dawn Into Sunset (click here to be directed to blog).

Meet Half Way

Over the MLK 3 day weekend, Anne and Becky traveled up from the Los Angeles area, I drove south on highway 1 and we met half way in Cambria. Cambria is cute little coastal town with tons of charm. Cambria offers many tasty restaurants, wonderful wine tasting, antique shops and various other stores that are filled with charm. During the month of January, the elephant seals beach themselves on their yearly migration trek so the females can give birth to their pups and the males are fighting over their female clan and mating to keep the cycle going. The last weekend in January is the wine festival. For lodging we stayed at the Morgan, a very nice hotel in San Simeon, 2 miles away from Cambria. There was a great walking path next to the ocean on Moonstone Drive.

The protected area went from one end of the beach to the other. There were hundreds of elephant seals on the beach. For every 20 or so females there was 1 male who was King of over these. Each of the females either had a pup, was soon to have a pup or already had a pup that expired.

The docents shared with us about the nursery scene. Here you see 1 female with 6 pups all around her trying to nurse. Only 1 of these pups is hers but the others have lost their mothers, either by not being able to find them on the beach, the mother's being young and not being able to call for them properly, or they deserted their moms. The sad truth is that this one mother will not have enough milk to feed anymore than one pup and the others most likely will expire from starvation. From the platform that was built to keep the people away from the seals, we view at least 4 dead pups.

Just below the front flipper of this male you can see the pup that we witnessed being born just a few minutes prior. This big fellow (the males can get up to 5,000 pounds), just had finished fighting another male and chased him into the water. He stopped almost right on top of the new born pup and gave out a big roar which I translate, "Stay back, these are my gals".

Just love these pictures from the garden area of one of the cute little shops that we visited.

My Second Blog

One of my New Year's goals from my last post said I wanted to start a new blog titled, From Dawn Into Sunset. I have the general layout done and my first post completed. I am still working on some of the details on my profiles to be different for each of my blogs but that will happen some other time when I am not so tired. You can click here to check out the blog or here is the URL: http://fromdawnintosunset.blogspot.com From Dawn Into Sunset will my exploration into each monthly issue of Sunset Magazine. I am thinking when I put a post on the my new blog, I will put a short post on here telling there is a new post, or at least here in the beginning.

Happy New Year (one week late)!

(Image taken from Google Images)

Happy New Year everyone! Seems weird that the date is now 2010 and oh how time is still flying on by. Was it just 10 years ago that the electronic world was going to come to a halt because anything computerized was not going to be able to handle the date change to 2000? What a wild New Year Eve that was for me 10 years ago. I was walking the streets of San Francisco with my dear friends Jerre and Selena along with 500,000 other people (at least). To say the least, it was crazy and so out of the norm of my typical celebration of New Year's Eve. This year was so typical for me, I really don't like being out in the crowds or driving after 12:00 with the drunks. My dear friend Dawn and I went to dinner at a new restaurant that we have wanted to try and then went to see Avatar in 3D. Was in the comfort of my own home by 10:30. Very nice (I was up way past the ball dropping in California time- I was not that huge of a party pooper).

I have come up with a list of New Year's Goals that I want to try to accomplish this year. Not resolutions, because to me making a resolution means that I need to correct something that has been incorrect or not right. There may be some truth to my goals about needing resolutions but not completely. So, I have goals this year. One of my lifetime sayings is, "If you aim for something, you will hit something, but, if you aim for nothing, you will hit anything". Here are my 2010 goals, in no particular order:

• Finish last year's read through the Bible in a year plan. Currently, I am about 3/4 of the way done. After I am done with that plan, I want to read through different New Testament books each month, the whole month through the same book.
• Read one leisure book a month (this will have to mean less TV and computer time).
• Memorize scripture
• Start a single gals monthly prayer time
• Get my WSI certification (water safety instruction).
• Keep going towards my weight goal, taking it nice and slow. I did not put on this weight overnight and I can't expect to take it off overnight.
• Order my creative wall expression for "We Are Family, All Of My Sisters and Me" and hang family photos on one of my hallway walls.
• Deep clean and organize my closet.
• Travel more, make specific time ahead of time to take trips including little day trips.
• Plan out my summer plans ahead of time, not every little detail but the big things.
• Join a Christian online dating site. I can not even begin to tell you how much I dislike online dating sites but God just might use this avenue to allow me to meet a Godly man.
• Take a photography class.
• Enter the county fair for a few photos, some of my herbs, maybe something from the garden and a jar of my apple sauce.
• Cook one recipe for family and/or friends and take one trip of a point of interest highlighted in each month's addition of Sunset Magazine. I would like to blog on each of these each month, possibly starting up a new blog called From Dawn Into The Sunset.
• Save $ into a specific bank account for fun money for purchases for my home.
• Hike all of the trails in Briones Regional Park with Suzanne (this actually needs to be completed by 11/11/10).
• Teach a canning class to the woman at my church.
• Have game nights at my home.
• Blog on what is growing in my garden, garden maintenance and what's at the farmer's market.
• Visit my beloved family in Coalinga often.
• Run a 5K, run/walk a 10K, and run/walk a half marathon.

Please feel free to ask me how I am doing of any of these goals at any point in time. God has programed me to need my cheerleaders along the way and accountability.

Briones Goal 1/2/10

My vacation started and ended with hikes chipping away at hiking each and every trail in Briones Regional Park in a year. Again today we were slogging through the mud, more mud today than last time, but still equally as beautiful. The morning started out with a warmer fog than last time, we saw many newts (had to be careful not to step on them), this time we saw several red tailed hawks up close. They had incredible markings on their backsides. Suzy and I have almost finished off all the trails in the Northern part of the park. Today's hike was 4.67 miles. My body is starting to really feel good with the hiking. I praise the Lord to be able to explore His incredible creation.

Today, for some reason, both Suzy and I were on the quieter side and that allowed us to listen to the creation and to use our senses. When we attuned our ears and focused we could hear the droplets of rain and dew fall off the bay leaves and fall to the ground below, the swooping of the wings of the hawks, the chirping of the little birds in the bushes and leaves, and the trickle of the stream. There was also the squishing of mud with each step we took, and the exhaling of labored breathing with each uphill step I took and the exclamation of, "This is so incredibly beautiful".

Very nice end to my vacation. Longing for the next hike. The next 4 are already planned.