My Review of REI Woodland Fleece Jacket - Women's

REI

REI Woodland jacket is made from midweight Polartec® 200 fleece for warmth and softness.

REI Woodland Fleece Jacket - Women's

Light and warm!

Callie Seattle, WA 6/6/2009

 

4 5

Gift: No

Fit: Feels true to size

Sleeve Length: Feels true to length

Chest Size: Feels true to size

Pros: Warm, Stylish, Comfortable, Lightweight

Best Uses: Casual Wear, Hiking and Camping, Cold Weather

Describe Yourself: Avid Adventurer

I can't get over what a great fleece this is. It's really lightweight, which I value for my longer backpacking trips; keeps me comfortable down to 40 deg F. Lower than that I just add my down vest (10oz) and I'm set to below freezing temperatures. This fleece fits me perfectly (XS for 5'5", 124lb self with long torso), and looks so cute that I can wear it to work in the city when missing the trails. I wish that the pockets were zippered, but that would add weight as well anyway. Soft, comfortable, warm, lightweight, dries quickly, and does not shed black onto my other clothes. To those who felt it did not hold up or shrunk, I suggest not using the dryer. I never put my hiking gear in the dryer.

One con that I see in this piece as in most athletic clothes: there is a bit of extra room in the belly area. Not more than other athletic clothes. I guess it adds to the comfort factor. Still pretty flattering.

()

Girl Power and Jim H

My friend Kelli really made my day yesterday. Actually, it is making my day today too just remembering it! Someone was just telling me to wait for the guys to help Jeremiah lift our friends' couch out of the moving van - which was almost reasonable of this someone to want more people at least, because it is a heavy couch - but of course it just made me want to move the couch more. And Kelli came bounding into the moving van and said "I'm good at moving heavy things, what are we moving?" And together we moved the other end of gargantuan couch.

So great! So refreshing! I haven't even read The Frailty Myth yet, which I want to, but I am So Tired of girls thinking that we are weaker than we are. We are not weak, we are as strong as our fiery spirits and our will to exercise our muscles! We don't need to wait for a guy to help us! As a retired brain surgeon told me once as I helped landscape his yard, you don't have to be big and bulky to be strong, you just need spunk. Or as David would say, "Just don't listen to what your body is telling you." Yes! Or as Kelli said yesterday, "It was just my sister and I growing up, and when you don't have someone to help you, you just do it anyway. Sure, it might take a bit longer, but you do it."

I am thankful that I grew up with a Dad who taught me how to fix my car. I am grateful that my guy friends taught me how to change the brakes on my car and jump off cliffs, not just drink coffee. I am so happy with husband, who does not treat me like a fragile girl, but drinks up adventure with myself, and encourages me to have more adventure and challenge than I have with other girls. I embrace the beauty of my friend Liz's mantra, that we can strive to have the best characteristics of both sexes.

Can I just say how great this was? Not that we have to kill ourselves at every opportunity, but our muscles (and our mental muscles) atrophy with disuse, but quickly strengthen with spirit. Even as husband and wife, himself and myself can choose to depend on each other, but it doesn't mean that we need each others' help for everything involving a bike or a hike or a heavy object. And when we imagine activities that we can do together, we have more choices than just coffee or a talking-fest. Please, let's stop thinking that we need to be gentle with women as weaker vessels, and instead, give ourselves the room to live equally in the exuberance that comes with fully living and using our amazing bodies, which are capable of awesome movement!

Disclaimer: David didn't say don't listen to your body to a girl, he said it to a guy. Also, I still like you even if you don't feel strong yet, and Karina is an awesome swimmer even if she doesn't like lifting couches. I am not a strong swimmer. Yet. :o)

Was walking home from local food store tonight with cloth bag of whole grain foods slung over shoulder, in my comfy keens with patagonia down vest keeping me warm, realized with great surprise and even dismay: I. have. gone. granola.

This may have been accentuated by my rolling up my pants earlier to compare the fit of my new hiking socks in my keens in preparation for backpacking weekend. However. The realization hit me and I munched up a few more blue grain tortilla chips than my previous day's workout and today's biking to work would have otherwise allowed.

Granola. Completely apart from the delicious pumpkin and flax seed actual granola in my cloth bag, I have grafted another part of society into my being. And, I realized in dismay with two additional blue tortilla chips, I am too thrifty to be a v. cute granola girl - although I definitely get points for the color of my vest. Vestige of relief with consciousness of color shading. While I have never been eco-vindictive, I would usually classify myself as carbon and eco neutral; living a thrifty, "normal" societal life, surely not recycling my own rainwater. After all, my pots of herbs on the porch recycle the water for me...

The rewards of granola living, I reasoned, are significant. Backpacking at Lake Chelan, excuses to shop the discount garage at REI...why yes, perfect reasons exist for joining the eco-friendly.

There may be hope for self. I still wear mascara. The kind made from olive oils, of course. ;)

To 'poo eschew

(Photo curtesy of Duane Hoffmann / msnbc.com)

I keep hearing and reading about how great it is for your hair not to shampoo every day...or perhaps even at all! From NPR to MSNBC, this dirty little beauty secret is making its way abroad.

I've heard that when you stop washing your hair, your hair gets oily at first because your scalp is used to overproducing oils to compensate for being constantly stripped of its natural oils. But after 4 to 6 weeks...experimenters claim luster and body of amazing nature! Check out the photos in this article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30337386/

Should I do it? Should I make the experiment?.................

Veins in my sap

As I run in the dusk I feel that the sap has begun to warm in our veins from winter sleep, we are stirred from winter restlessness and now we have come from winter to spring.

Our paths have been winding this spring thinking of grad school, the way ahead uncertain. I am only sure that "From dust we came, to dust we shall depart - we are being held in God's hands."

In the roads of our meandering together, we have shared adventures from coast to coast of the States.

We visited Philly and saw some national monuments:



















Also in San Francisco we journeyed to Alcatraz. David loved having the sun in his eyes...



















Now we are glad to stay in our one place for awhile.

linguistical marvels

Am working late and in need of a brain-break.

As such, decided to expound upon the glorious creation of deviant words. Now, as some may know, I abhor buzzwords and jargon - new words that lack creativity and add limited or no meaning to our depleted English language. However, and with equal or perhaps greater fervor (forgive me for my zealous opinion), I delight in the creative manipulation of vocabulary that adds innovation and meaning.

To this end, my witty co-worker Jerry and myself have, in manner of nerdful technical writers, begun to post Words of Week on slimline, mac-esque, beautiful whiteboard posted in portrait mode in our office. With no further distortion of elaboration, behold the word juices of February.......

drismal (adjective)
The first word to be coined by myself while in residence at Tecplot. Used typically to describe a certain shade of Seattle weather, this word incorporates the meaning of drippy, dismal, dreary and (d)rainy. Specifically, used to describe the extreme state of non-description of the previously stated adjectives.

wat (interjection)
Descriptively used by both, first prescriptively used by Jerry, acts as a disgusted or incredulous cry in response to statement, events, or circumstances that make no sense; further, that you do not even wish to be explained.

Example: [Insert ridiculous statement by The Internets here.]
Response: "wat."

Usage note: Should be spoken in a low, monotone, almost robotic voice, with as little expression as possible.

plethorate (verb; also infinitive: to plethorate)
Coined inadvertently in conversation by a member of our company who shall remain nameless through no fault of their own, this creative verb describes the procreational tendencies of inanimate objects that generate meaningless material.

Example: "The documents on our shared drive tend to plethorate."

Usage note: Do not make the mistake of thinking of this word as a piece of office jargon. It does not qualify, for it a) adds meaning, b) shows a creative spirit, and c) does not injunct the use of sports or other outside world events which, by their use, make office workers feel that they are living in the "real world". :)

troublic transport (noun phrase)
The particular species of transport popular on the western coast of North America, although spotty in population within a particular region, is in no danger of dying out. Refers to the inconsistent and untraceable patterns of transport meant for public use which, despite best efforts, elude common understanding and attempt to introduce as much chaos and wasted time as the transport deems profitable. Suspected to feed on angst felt by passengers waiting at empty transport stations, stops, and waiting areas.

hiccups and harmonicas

When I was little, I read a book about a boy who decided to invent a musical instrument like a rectangle comb that you could blow into to make different notes on a musical scale, and he would call it a harmonica. And in the book, he told someone about his invention, and they told him that harmonicas already existed, and he was very sad.

This book gave me a sense of urgency that I needed to hurry up and invent ideas before anyone else thought of them ahead of me.

So I thought hard for awhile, and then I went to my mother and told her that I had discovered a scientific breakthrough, that I decided the pupil of your eye must not be a physical object but a hole in your eye that lets in light.

She told me scientists already knew that.

But in my young scientific fervor, there is one idea that I did not master. I had heard that to cure the hiccups, you should drink water upside down. I looked forward to - perhaps even occasionally induced - hiccups - so that I could scientifically experiment drinking water in a variety of odd positions, trying to find that one position that would fulfill the myth. I was particularly partial to lying on my back on my bed so that the upper half of my body was off the bed, *upside down* and trying to ingest copious amounts of liquid that way.

To no avail.

So you can imagine my surprise and elation a couple weeks ago. when. my hiccups had continued unabated for longer than himself and myself could laugh at them, and we were heading out the door to Our Coffeeshop to study the elementary equations of matter, and himself said, "you need some water" and strode to the kitchen and showed me how to cure my hiccups!!!

!!!

Apparently this is what "drinking upside down" means: It means drinking out of the opposite side of the glass from yourself!
once we stopped laughing long enough for myself to drink, it worked amazingly.

welsh and pot pies

I laughed out loud at this sign highlighted in a story on BBC's website, my homepage which I am especially enjoying with their new customizable look. Apparently this sign, which looks innocuous enough in English, reads in the Welsh translation, "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated." This is what happens when you unquestioningly implement the email reply from your welsh translator! Hahaha.

Since David and I are preparing to take the Physics GRE next Saturday (studying hours on end at coffeeshop over americanos, scribbling equations with dinner, having friendly squabbles over obscure equations), grocery shopping (along with netflix, vacuuming, etc) has fallen by the wayside. Today I finally made myself go to Safeway, after seeing the barren bones of our fridge deplete of even bread and butter! Planning for our week, we decided to try to get low-preparation level foods. So we can concentrate on looming exam. Therefore I intentionally turned to the frozen foods aisle, somewhere I seldom venture except for the occasional pizza (when living on wild side). And I discovered the freaking amazing, although unsurprising, height of convenience to which America markets frozen convenient foods! Seriously. Any amount of serving sizes, healthiness level, cheese-factor - practically every other item in the store also came pre-packaged in a little frozen plastic bundle. America, you have outdone your frozen, junk-food self. And although there were myriad options, I must admit I found it difficult to find foods that were 1) not too junky, 2) not too expensive, 3) could be cooked in oven (don't like microwaves, i know a little about scientific radiation and don't much want to put it in my body..), and 4) not full of cheese for husband. Loitering required.

Fortunately, husband called to say dinner was ready and we could eat and study more, so I left. Am looking forward to pot pies in manner of American pasties. Yum!