Uh oh...

Sadly, our Sunday explorations were cut short this weekend.  We were lucky enough to get out to Kelley Point Park (beautiful outlook where the Wilamette River and the Columbia River meet) for an hour or so (pictures below).  But that was only AFTER the discovery that this little fluffy creature is not the only creature living in our house.  

She's got FLEAS!  Yuck yuck yuck!  

In all my years living with a great big golden retriever, Abby, I have never encountered fleas.  I am so grossed out!  She's even an indoor cat!  The vet says that because our apartment complex has carpeted hallways, the flea eggs/larvae will  drop off any other unclean mongrel that lives in our building and then stick to Futty when she goes into the hall.  She does wander into the hall often since she's a bit of an escape artist.  At any rate,  it is NASTY!  I combed her fur on Sunday with a "flea comb" which has super fine teeth and it's mainly used to detect the "flea dirt" (a nice euphemism for flea poo) on the skin.  

"Flea dirt" is more or less dried blood bits.  In addition to a disgusting amount of flea dirt, I found nearly 10 LIVE fleas!  Blech!  

Dan, being the wonderfully helpful husband he is, ran out today to chat with the vet and get some medication for her.  Not to mention picking up a ton of quarters for laundry, haha.  I came home from school and did a complete cleaning of her favorite spots, and 3 loads of laundry (more to come tomorrow as I wash ALL blankets and rugs and any fabric with which she's had contact).  

We're dealing with it, and so is Futty cat.  And I suppose I just have a bit of motivation for some more deep cleaning, we all know how much I love that!  Luckily, despite the gross encounter, we were able to check out some pretty river views before our hectic week started. 

  

Sunday Explorations

Since Dan had Sunday off of work again this week, we decided to do a bit of exploration.  I wanted to do some serious hiking (like out at Mt. Hood or Mt. St. Helens) but Dan woke up with a cold and wasn't feeling too energetic.  I can't blame him since he ran 19 miles the day before, while I sat on my butt.  We decided to drive out to Powell Butte Nature Park, a nature preserve east of Portland.  We were disappointed to find that most of it was shut down due to construction, but we did find a little trail leading into the preserve and we decided to see where it led us.  We were pleasantly surprised to find some gorgeous vistas.  

Here I am with Mt. Hood in the background (taken on my new phone, FYI...check out that quality!) 

And another Mt. Hood view (which isn't quite as clear because I zoomed it in quite a bit) 

I've grown to look forward to seeing Mt. Hood every morning.  I used to be surprised when I saw it looming over the skyline because it seemed so sporadic.  One day it was clearly visible, and the next it would be hidden by clouds.  I've since learned the exact point on the horizon to look and nearly every morning I can see the outline of the beast looming in the sunrise.  It's like it's saying "Good Morning!" 

From our vantage point in Powell Butte, we were able to spy Mt. St. Helens too!  Her poor decapitated self.  Again it's blurry from zooming.  The iPhone isn't perfect yet.  Or maybe the user isn't perfect yet. 

Sometimes if it's clear enough, I can find her in the morning too.  But I haven't quite learned her spot yet, plus she's farther away. Two weeks ago though, Dan and I were driving along the St. John's bridge (the farthest north bridge in Portland) and saw her clear as day behind us. She scares me a bit though. She's unpredictable.  

Last but not least, and you'll have to use your imaginations for this one.  We could spy the TINY little tip of Mt. Rainier.  I promise, those aren't clouds, it's a mountain peak...it's just really far away.  Trust me.    

Fall Colors

When my parents were in town they asked, "Do the colors change in the fall around here?"  Dan tried his best to answer from his limited knowledge of Portland life.  But his explanation of "The colors change, but it usually rains too quickly and knocks down the pretty leaves before we can enjoy the colors" was SO wonderfully off!  Check out the gorgeous leaves here! 

All photos in this post were taken by my dear husband who is realizing the error of his ways.  I am excited to see what kind of pictures my new iPhone can take!  I'll share them with you once I figure the contraption out :)   

Rhythms

Settling into a new school year has been a bit slow, but I think I'm starting to feel the rhythm.  I just submitted my midterm grades for the first quarter, which means the school year is an eighth of the way finished already, so it's about time I start feeling settled! 

 It's been a strange transition from teaching in Chicago to teaching in Portland.  I'm learning that I developed some bad teaching habits in Chicago (putting off grading until the last minute, for one) which I'm trying to break.  With only four classes to plan for and teach, I definitely have more time to think and reflect, which is going to be really helpful in my habit-breaking.  It also has a negative affect on me, though.  I'm so used to having a huge class load to plan for and teach (13 in Chicago...yeah, that's not a typo, THIRTEEN), that I keep feeling like I'm forgetting something, or missing something massively important.  I'm not though...usually. 

As far as our normal (non-school) lives, we're settling in there too.  Dan's been getting nearly 40 hours a week working at the store, but a lot of those hours are on the weekends.  We're trying to make the most of the time we both have off work.  Yesterday afternoon we actually had free time that coincided.  We were able to go for a drive around town and explore different neighborhoods we hadn't seen before.  We also got a bit excited talking about buying a house, haha.  NOT for quite a while, we know, but it's fun to think about nonetheless.  Especially because poor Futty-cat has started to get a bit strange cooped up in this box.  In Chicago we were able to take her out and explore outside a little bit.  Here, being a much larger apartment complex, she's stuck inside and has very limited views of the great outdoors.  She's started to "run laps" where she jumps onto the built-in bookshelves in the bedroom then streaks across the apartment to the top of the toilet in the bathroom.  She repeats this circuit about 10 times before settling on chasing her tail...seriously.  She's crazy.  But, I guess she has her own rhythm now too, just a very different drum.