Summer Recap 1st Edition: The Summer of Catfishing

I asked my blog-friends-turned-real-life-friends Kailey and Brianna if it was dumb to recap my summer even if these things happened like, last month and they told me no. So, I'm gonna go ahead and proceed to recap summer stuff that I never got onto le blog cause they said it was OK. And I need validation by my friends in order to do things. Not really, but kind of. And plus, I just kind of feel like fall can't officially start until summer has been officially blogged. Cause you know, the world revolves around my blog and stuff.

Anyway, I've posted a couple times this summer about catfishing (like, here and here) and I kind of feel like it was indeed the "summer of the catfish."

We made our way out to Bartlett Lake often this summer, even more so Nate than I, in an effort to catch a big 'ol catfish. At least that was my goal. I never succeeded, but I got pretty close. Nate succeeded a bunch of times cause that's just how he rolls I guess. Nate's good at everything and I don't understand it.

He kicks my ass in everything. Except college degrees. I have a leg on up on him in that department. But everything else he beats me in and I have to figure out a way to reverse that trend. Catfishing certainly isn't going to be it.

The last time we went out I got a huuuuuge fish on my line but couldn't reel him in in before he snapped the line. He was that big. And that's not an old fisherman's tale...he was huge. He was so heavy I could barely crank the reel; but good news - at least now I know I can hold onto the rod.

That was one of my fears; if a fish got on the line and it started fighting would he rip the rod right out of my hands??? Nate said if I was that weak and he lost a good fishing pole cause I couldn't hang onto it, he couldn't be married to me anymore. So you know, that's a relief and stuff.

But no matter if I got a fish or not, catfishing was fun this year. It was fun to catch bait fish (Blue Gill), drink wine/beer/anything anyone brought, swim, and hang out while waiting for your bell to ring on your pole signaling you had something on your line. Most of all it was fun to sleep on just your cot, under the stars. No tent, no nothing. That was on my bucket list for this summer and we made it happen, and it was just as awesome as I though it would be....minus the bugs and stuff in the morning, which were terrriblllleeee...but I wasn't gonna let that ruin things.

Bartlett Lake was good to us this summer. It was hot, and it was fun, and it was full of bugs, but it was also full of catfish...

...which worked out nicely for Nathan, and not so much for me. But it's whatevs.

On your way into Bartlett Lake there's a turn-off for Horseshoe Lake, which Nate, nor I have ever taken, and on our way home last time we decided to take a detour and see what Horseshoe Lake was all about.

Turns out it wasn't a lake at all. It had been drained recently and left us with this:

I love Arizona because of all the places that surprise you...like Horseshoe Lake for example. It's crazy to think this is all underwater usually. It's green, and includes river, and mountains, and it's gorgeous; and as a native Arizonan, Arizona never ceases to amaze me.

All ye who think Arizona is nothing but desert is gravely mistaken.
...That was my Pirates-of-the-Caribbean warrning of sorts.

Anyway, I asked Nate today, "Is catfishing season over?" and he said no. So maybe, with any luck, we'll head back out to Bartlett this fall and maybe just maybe I'll catch myself a big 'ol catfish after all.

   

The Great Flood of 2014

Ok so I know I said I was gonna try and catch up on all the fun summer things that went down the last couple months, but I've decided to blog about something else instead. I know, I'm fickle. If you think that's bad, just ask me what I want to eat for dinner.

So it rained here in Arizona yesterday. Or rather, Sunday in the middle of the night through Monday morning. Like, rained really hard. Like rained so much that freeways were flooded, cars were stranded, school districts were closed, and the Governor declared a state of emergency. Like, rained so much that Nate and I left for work in my car and couldn't even get out of our neighborhood it was so flooded; we had to turn around and go back to get his truck to make it through all the water.

Source 

Source

Also, please note the hashtag: #turnarounddontdrown. Oh Jan... I bet she thought of that one herself.

It was so flooded everywhere that the Department of Transportation didn't even know where to begin.

Whoever runs that Twitter had the busiest morning of their life. But actually, shout out to them cause they did a fantastic job at keeping us all up-to-date on flood areas, freeway closures, etc. If you drive in Arizona, go follow them now.

So all that to say, since our neighborhood was absolutely flooded, Nate and I decided to make the most of it and take our kayaks out to do some paddling around in what was a nice green belt area. Cause I dunno, that's what you should do right?

Let me give you some perspective; this is what it should look like behind my house:

Ignore the Christmas picture part; I didn't have any other photos to use. But do notice the nice sidewalks and grassy areas.

You don't have to ignore the Christmas Picture part in this one cause my dogs are just too cute to ignore. Especially with their Reindeer antlers on. ...But again, sidewalks for walking, grass for.....taking Christmas pictures.

This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon:

There were ducks and everything.

You guys, we had our own personal canals to just paddle all around in. I felt like I was in Italy or something. You know how they have the canals, like, in the middle of the city? Except less Italian-chic and more suburbia-Arizona. Or maybe kind of like the Venetian in Vegas...except less expensive (read, "free") and no singing men on the back of my boat. Although maybe that could be a possibility if I did some convincing with Nate.

But seriously though, I knew my HOA fees were gonna be used for a purpose some day - and that purpose was to build the green belt behind my house that doubled as a waterway. And then the HOA looked up to the heavens, raised their hands and said, "Let the rains come," and then it rained, and the green belt flooded and became that waterway, and Nate and I kayaked it.

...That's how I have it in my head anyway.

So I mean, the state of Arizona was basically almost sunk yesterday, but things could always be worse. For example, you could've not kayaked down the green belt behind your house.

Lemonade out of lemons, people.

Blog Titles Can Be Hard to Think of

I feel like I should just give up on trying to come up with good intros to blog posts cause every time I sit down to start one, the first thing that comes to my mind is, "Hi friends. It's me again and I'm here to blog." It's not creative or anything but I feel like it gets the point across right? It would save me a lot of time in trying to figure out how to open these here blog posts. ...So anyway, I've had two conversations with three blog friends over the course of the last 4 hours about getting back into blogging regularly. So naturally, that put me in the mood to blog. Hopefully it lasts all week.

There's so much that happened this summer that I never blogged about, so my goal is to sort of do a "summer wrap-up" if you will, in order to get all these things blogged. I'm thinking maybe I'll just start with this weekend because duh, that's the easiest. Not that my weekend was super eventful but you gotta start somewhere right??

Friday night I went to a women's conference at Sun Valley Community Church. It was really good and we had a lot of fun except I don't have any pictures to show you cause by the time the conference ended it was like 10:30 at night and we were all so tired (cause we're old ladies?) that the idea of taking a group photo just wasn't happening. We all just kept yawning and being like, "I'm so tired. Like, I'm so tired. Wait, where did we park?" But we were introduced to the hilarity that is Kerri Pomarolli. She's a Christian comedian who describes herself as an "out of the closet Christian in Hollywood." She's hilarious. Google her, I'll wait here...........See? She's funny right??

If my math is correct, considering I've had a couple glasses of Sauvignon Blanc by now, after Friday comes Saturday and Saturday was a good day. I spent the afternoon with one of my best friends eating and shopping. A good combination if you ask me. We did lunch at the Chop Shop which, if you haven't been there...go. They do like, "health food" and juices and smoothies and good stuff. And plus their place looks like what I would imagine Pinterest to look like if it came to life.

Plus they have beer and wine and happy hour and a bar that opens up to the outside patio so I'm basically gonna be there Monday-Friday when the weather cools down.

Saturday night I headed out to one of my other best friend's house for some football and Cards Against Humanity.

Have you played this game yet?? Word on the street is it's a party game for horrible people. And I'm fine with that. I'm fine with being a horrible person cause this game is just too funny not to play.

Sunday has been terribly uneventful. Except for the fact that I went through my hundreds of unread blogs and commented and caught up on everyone's lives like a good blogger should. So if I blew up your inbox with a crap-ton of comments...sorry. I also video chatted with my dear blog friend Mosby and GUESS WHAT?? I bought my plane ticket last week and I'm officially going to visit her in less than FOUR WEEKS! I'm so excited I can't even tell you. Cause what's more exciting than meeting your best blog friends in real life?? Going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter WITH your best blog friends ...that's what!! And that's what we're doing!!... If I were to say I can't wait, that would be the understatement of the year.

So yeah. There's my weekend. I'm going to try my hardest to get the rest of summer blogged up nice and neat in a sweet little package cause you can't really close the book and move on to fall if you still have outstanding events that haven't been blogged right?? ...I thought so too.

Happy Monday friends!!

There's an Excuse for That

So it's Monday night and I should be blogging about my weekend. If you wanna get down to the nitty gritty I should've been blogging about my weekend on Sunday night but if there's anything I'm learning in my adult life it's that there's two things that surely will not get done on Sundays: a blog post and grocery shopping. So anyway, as I mentioned, I should be telling you about what I did over the weekend but I'm just not in the mood to go through all my pictures and piece together a whole blog post. So the next best thing is a list. And the next best thing after that is a list of all the excuses I make up for not blogging. 

Why didn't I think of this post sooner?

25 Excuses I Make for Not Blogging

I'm not in the mood

There's too many pictures to sort through

It's 9pm and Big Bang Theory is on

It's Monday and I need to grocery shop cause I didn't do it Sunday

I'm tired

I have a hang nail and it hurts to type

The batteries in my mouse died and I don't know where to find new ones

Too much wine

I don't have any good ideas

Not enough wine

Gunther needs me to snuggle with him

Nate is gone and this is the only time I can watch Real Housewives of anywhere without judgement

This sounds stupid

It's Shark Week

I'm eating Chips and it's too much work to dust the salt off my fingers every time, before I put them back on my keyboard

I'm stuck on YouTube

I'm stuck on Instagram

The computer screen is hurting my eyes

Nate is snoring and I can't focus

I don't feel like it

I lost the "Note" in my phone with all my ideas on it

Book club is this week and I need to read

This sounded better in my head

Cops is on and I want to see where this guy hid the drugs

It's taking too long to finish this post

...and the list goes on. What excuses do you make to get out of blogging?

It's Been Too Long Since I've Blogged and I'm Starting With Kinder Creek

Hi guys. It's me, Carissa. I'm a little embarrassed to even show up here considering it's been like, almost a month since I've filled this blank white space with any type of words or pictures. Oops. In my defense I did try to sit down on a few occasions and blog, but then I got distracted with different things and just never put the virtual pen to paper. Videos of people on YouTube teaching their birds to say bad words can really take up a lot of your time if you're not careful.

So needless to say there's a lot to catch up on around here. I'm gonna start with last weekend cause that requires the least amount of mental exercise in remembering what's been going down since the last time I posted.

Last weekend Nate and I went hiking to my most favorite place ever: Kinder Creek. We go every summer and this is my fourth time taking the quick, yet most scenic trip down the mountain (see here, here, and here). Every year we go I hesitate to blog about it cause really, I don't want other people knowing my most favorite spot ever. Cause then other people go to it. And I don't like other people. Kidding of course. Sort of. Anyway, I think my secret's out of the bag though cause Nate said when you Google Kinder Creek it's all pictures from my blog. Oops.

Our first stop after the hike down hill is this neat beach-y area right at the bottom. The water is always super cold but I make myself go in anyway cause I dunno, I just feel like that's what you should do when you're hiking and it's summer time.

After we (and when I say "we" I really mean just me) finished swimming we crossed to the other side of the creek and moved on to the next spot.

I'm trying to get this panorama thing down and I don't think I'm quite there yet. Is it Panorama or Panoramic? Either way, my hands aren't steady enough to get a good shot. But despite the lack of panoramic quality you can't really get around the fact that this place is gorgeous right??

Too many pics? Sorry. I have this thing where I take a million pictures (not literally a million, but almost) and sorting through them takes too long so I've started just including all of them. More scrolling for you, but less pre-post work for me. Pre-post...I can see how that could be confusing now that I typed it out. I mean like, before I write the post - pre-post. You get it right? Anyway, I'm way off track. So like I said before, hiking and summer time calls for swim time too.

It's also important to note that there's TONS (like, tons I'm not even being dramatic) of crawdads in this creek and after watching Shark Week all week there was a little part of me wondering if there was like, a Megalodon crawdad down in there somewhere ready to pinch my leg off. Or like, a Submarine crawdad. Good news though, none of my limbs got pinched off. So if he's out there, the Megalodon/Submarine (Megamarine?) crawdad, he spared my life this time.

Eventually it was time for the hike back up the mountain. Which totally sucks for two reasons:
1.) It's time to leave Kinder Creek
2.) It's up hill
3.) It's really steep in a few sections
That was more than two reasons...which actually just goes to show how much leaving this place sucks.

So instead of making our way home we decided to take a drive.

And we drove to the other end of the creek. And we played in it.

And then we drove home. But not before eating mexican food. Cause how do you refuel after a long day of hiking if not for refried beans and cheese??

So anyway, hopefully I can get this here blog caught up with all the happenings that've been, well, happening. And hopefully it won't take me another month to do so. Hopefully.