Last Saturday, I joined another Vegan group hike and I’m excited to share my favorite pictures from the day. We started our hike at the Catherine pass trail head at the end of Little Cottonwood Canyon.
↑ There we are picnicking at 10420 ft.; L A K E C A T H E R I N E to our left and the tippy top of S U N S E T P E A K (10648 ft.) to our right.
↑ It’s a beautiful and not at all difficult hike. That being said, I was going very, very slowly because I had several asthma attacks during the night (our neighbor snuck a dog into our pet-free apartment building) und so especially when we were hiking up my post-asthma lungs felt full of water and feverish. It is not a pleasant feeling to exercise when I’m unable to breathe out. All I want to do is inhale a big gulp of fresh air, but my lungs feel so heavy and full, I only have space for a tiny sip. So if I want to breathe properly, I have to force myself to keep going and to breathe out as much as I can so that I can empty my lungs. Emptying my lungs a is really painful process, but it is the quickest way to feel better. Exercise just forces me to do it faster despite the pain.
I don’t normally get the wet feeling in my throat and lungs unless I had several asthma attacks. But when I do, I know that exercise first makes the wet inside me sulfurous before it lifts it out of me. So, it’s a good thing… like a forceful little detox.
↑ S U N S E T P E A K
↑ The destination of our hike, Sunset Peak, wasn’t looking to sunny that day. In fact, this big gloomy cloud kept hovering over the mountain and I decided I could skip walking the very last bit to the summit. Look how tiny the person in the distance seems—that little black speck at the summit. I bet he felt like he could touch the sky.
↑ Looking down at L A K E C A T H E R I N E. These pictures don’t quite show how high the peaks are and how steep and far down I could fall of the rock. What a lovely view.
↑ Cute, cute, cute. I’m not sure what this little guy is, but with his tummy almost touching the ground he sure looked well nourished and ready for a long winter’s snooze.
↑ I suppose I got too busy looking at chipmunks and admiring wildflowers.
↑… and taking photographs…
↑ I’m falling behind as my group walks on!
↑ I’m clearly loosing my group.
↑ Beautiful! But now that I was all alone, just the loud sound of crickets coming from the meadows next to the narrow path, I definitely wasn’t hoping to spot more animals. Right around this point, I was actually pretty worried I’d cross path with a rattle snake and I don’t know how I would have handled that.
↑ Luckily, no unfortunate events occurred and the rest of the hikers kindly waited for me at the end of the trail.
I hope everyone had a nice weekend.
♡ Nina
WE SOLD OUR CAR and WE ARE NOT GETTING A NEW ONE. At least not in the near foreseeable future. Letting go of the car is an oddly tough choice to make. It felt unreal putting it up for sale last night, especially when we sold it, handed over the keys and saw it driving off in less then four hours.
Wow! It’s done now and there's no going back.
My husband Spencer, though on board with the decision to sell, was awfully quiet throughout this whole process. I knew what was going through his mind, because I was pinched by those nagging questions too.
Are we making a BIG mistake?
Are we going to regret our decision? How soon?
Is it foolish?
Idiotic?
IT’S NOT. After all, we’re selling the car because it’s an unnecessary expense, it’s a luxury item we rarely use, and worst of all IT’S BROKEN. That’s right, we don’t drive it because it’s broken! It’s time to stop paying gas, insurance and repairs for a thing that might or might not carry us a few blocks without breaking down.
I’m excited we’re rid of it and I kept reminding Spencer that we’re not going to mourn a thing that lately gave us so much trouble. We won’t and we can’t. We are bravely going to move forward—by foot, by bike or by public transportation—and it will be so much better. The decision to sell the car wasn’t made lightly. We’ve debated the pros and cons, and discussed it at length with family and friends. Months passed before we finally went through with it.
For most Americans, or probably most anybody in the world, having a car is the default status, and it’s difficult to imagine life without it. I don’t care so much about car ownership, because I am much more interested in access. Salt Lake City offers access to all kinds of things without the need of a car. Since moving into the heart of downtown Salt Lake last fall, I quite enjoyed not having to use our car every day. I’m grateful for our current location and the extensive transportation system we could rely on if need be. I don't feel the need to own a car anymore. It bothered me more then it did good because it wasn’t really useful to us. I also think it’s quite liberating that I can go about my day without driving to do anything.
I suppose, I took it as a given that I always had and needed a car. In many ways, a car is a sort of status symbol, just as being able to learn driving a car is as a teenager. Fancy me, I even learned to drive stick shift. In the words of one of my good friends, this means that I have the privilege and good luck not to be a helpless damsel when it comes to driving. I would be able to drive anything, even a tractor, out of the sticks if I had to.
But I don't like driving.
I really don't and I'm ecstatic about each day I don't have to drive.
When we first moved into the city, we went days without it. Then weeks. We drove on special occasions when we planned an outing or wanted to go hiking. Mostly my husband drove, but he also started to dislike driving. I suppose you never consider the unnecessary stress of a fast-paced highway commute or congested streets until this drive is not a necessary evil in your day anymore. And then, the car kept having mechanical problems and we were pretty much afraid to drive it anywhere. So this is what let us to where we are now... choosing NO car.
So, today is day one of our car-free life. So far, in the months and weeks of using the car way less, I’ve enjoyed the additional exercise and reduced guilt about pollution and travel expenses. It’s also nice getting to know and discover all the little streets and alleys of the city as I paddle past. You see so much more when you’re going slow and have the ability to stop and hop off whenever you like. You could stop to smell the roses. This isn’t so much of a cliché, because if you know me, you can see how I’ve done this on more than one occasion.
♡ Nina
This Memorial Day, Spencer and I both had the day off, but since we didn’t have a holiday party or barbecue to attend, we decided to give hiking another go. And this trip was a success! I don’t know why we even bothered to ride our unreliable car the four miles to our hiking trail, because we both felt like riding in a ticking time bomb. I thought for sure we were going to break down again with some new mystery mechanical problem, but luckily we didn’t and we had a lot of fun hiking Red Butte Canyon.
To me, Memorial Day weekend is the official kick off of summer, scarf season once and for all ended and I am over-enthusiastically packing away all of my winter clothes. Bring on the heat, roll out the barbecues, I’m ready for summer! And then, if you happen to live on the east coast, the weather will turn on you once more and thwart your enthusiasm for summer by bringing on another lingering cold front. Usually, it will be on and off nasty and unpredictable for the next three weeks before summer will begin for real. Not so in Utah, but I am still learning to trust the weather. For the last 2 months, I’ve been eying those snow covered peaks lining Utah valley and think just because I can still see snow, there is a possibility of a sudden weather change (come nightfall, in the shade or wind, or with elevation gain). Worried I find myself out in the cold, I bring a scarf or cardigan in my purse—JUST IN CASE—and then I feel utterly foolish. So let’s share one of those foolish moments with all of you: Look at me wearing jeans while hiking in 77 °F / 25 °C weather.
The Red Butte Canyon Skyline Nature trail was a nice hike and it was fun to peek over the steep cliffs down into the valley once we reached the peak of the mountain ridge.
Look who's being silly. The close-up really shows that the husband thinks I’m a nut :)
Seriously though, I was excited I made it to the top because I wasn’t breathing to well that day. Due to the recent pet policy change in our apartment building which now allows dogs inside, I was struggling with my allergic asthma all week and just gotten over another asthma attack in the early morning hours. This didn’t stop me because I was determined to keep our plans, get out and do something fun. During our slow climb, Spencer kept joking that hiking on a bad asthma day must be like mountaineering in high altitude. I don’t think this is an appropriate comparison, but let’s just say that exercising your lungs while recovering from an asthma attack is never pleasant.
♡ Nina
Not anymore! Quite a few years ago, anyone who knows me would tell you “this girl loves purple, it’s her favorite color.” And surely it was! I was attracted to all things purple since basically kindergarten and I’d like to belief I’ve grown past that and matured a bit. Over the last few years, I’ve grown to love the simplicity and the clean aesthetics of white. I’m trying to make white happen, but like I mentioned in my minimalism post, I am trying, but I’m not good at minimalism. Most things turn out much busier then I like or intend them to be.
But back to the purple discussion.
Sometime last winter, I mentioned to my husband that the most fashionable color for 2014 was going to be some sort of lavender purple (radiant orchid) and that he wouldn’t find me partaking in this trend. And then I thought about it for a minute and realized I had already stocked up on pastel purple nail-polishes and I even purchased a lavender cream sundress. Ha! 🤣
(Note the purple dress, purple phone case and purple charms on my bracelet. Ha-ha. Besides the obvious excess of purple, it also WASN’T my intention to match outdoor greenery.)
Rummaging through my closet, I was shocked to find quite a few remnants of my purple loving craze. I think I'm okay with it. I still love purple. I’d still wear it on occasion. I always said purple is my snow-white color as it makes my skin paler (in a good, ivory kind of way) and my brown hair darker. Also, now that it's Spring, almost summertime, there are purple flowers everywhere—and they are beautiful: Purple tulips, purple pansies and recently, massively large purple onion plants (allium).
I like them too.
I guess I don’t mind that purple is so mainstream popular this year. However, this does NOT mean I’m going to get decked out in all purple again, or that I would dye my locks lavender to join the unicorn hair trend. I’m sure you have seen girls (and boys) with pastel purple, blue or pink hair this year or even as early as last summer. No worries, this is not going to happen :)
♡ Nina
I don’t know which fool first said that you can or should pull yourself up by your own boot-straps, but sometimes that’s exactly how managing my asthma feels like. I am the only one who can help myself even though I might not be physically capable to take any action. It’s more than just a matter of perseverance, of keeping my head low and continuing through an unpleasant situation until it’s over. Also, when I’m in the moment struggling to do something as basic as breathing, fearing for my life, I wouldn’t say I’m the most rational person. This is why I’m trying to write about my allergic asthma only when I’m on the upswing of things and I can for sure see that it’s all going to be okay in the end. This may sound immensely dramatic and I don’t like it to be that way. Sadly, it has been one hell of a year so far :(
In the beginning of the year, I was trying to find the right job and quitting many of them due to my allergies. As a result, my lung function was at an all time low.
Then, with a new job and in the process of recovering from the asthma attacks and the lingering inflammation, our car broke down and it was at the mechanic’s garage for almost three weeks. I found myself going from struggling to walk a mile without triggering my asthma to riding my bicycle to work in the snow. I was begging my husband to ride with me, but our schedules never quite matched. When he did, he was shocked to see how badly I was doing on the commute. As soon as we started riding, my asthma was instantly triggered and I was in a cold sweat and coughing the whole way. Sadly, this was already an improvement from the previous week when I found myself throwing up by the side of the road from coughing so much. But what was I supposed to do? Quit my job? I only worked this position for about two weeks. Call in sick? Or, risk taking the bus when I know people do take their pets on public transportation? The good news is, the darn car eventually got fixed and I learned to manage my 30-40 minute bicycle ride to work. It also stopped snowing on the commute which helped tremendously to boost my moral.
Then, in the very beginning of May, I had a massive asthma attack at work. It was a Monday morning and the family I nanny for just got back from a camping trip with friends who brought their dogs. I was unaware of this and the day turned into a nightmare! I left early and requested the following day off.
On the very same day, my husband learned that our apartment complex didn’t just change ownership, but that also, in a stealth mission, the pet policy changed. Without informing the current residents, new renters now have the option to live here with their dogs.
I was hysterical!
We instantly had to start searching for a new home in which I could feel safe. The search was frantic, but eventually successful. Now we can’t move into our new place until the first of June and we are obligated to keep and pay for our current apartment for the next 30 days. There are no laws to protect people with allergies, no matter how life-threatening their condition may be. What do you guys think of that? For me, it’s unnerving to see dogs walk into the building with their owners knowing I have to walk the same hallways as they do.
At this point, we’ve made it more then halfway through May, I'm recovering from being sick and I weaned myself off of daytime medication. This was important to me because functioning on asthma and allergy medication is no walk in the park. One day, I was trying to make sense of and count all the factors that made me sick yet again even though I was on medication, when my husband remarked: “…you most certainly had your third exposure, you were just to medicated and caffeinated to experience it.” This scared me. I was too much in a fog to experience things that were happening to me? What else am I not experiencing? What else am I missing out on? Also, I keep taking the car to work because I’m still unfit to ride the bike and I still can’t kick the nightly asthma scare between 3 and 4 in the morning. The early morning hours is the time when anyone’s lung function is lowest and it’s a tough time for asthmatic like myself because even ambient allergens trigger an asthma attack while the person is sleeping.
On my personal Facebook page, I mentioned how troubling our current situation is to my physical and spiritual well being.
One of my friends commented, I might want to start by being grateful for the loving relationship I have with my husband. I don’t know how kind or callused this remark was intended to be, but it felt off. I'm really grateful for my husband and the sweet relationship we have. I couldn’t ask for anything better. We work together to fight the struggles that seem to come at us, but I’m fearing, how much it is we can handle until our relationship will also turn bitter.
Despite so many unfavorable circumstances and health struggles, I try to live my life with positive energy and I actively search out things that could make my day a bit better. I plan fun things to do in advance, so no matter how miserable my day, or my week has been, I get to feel a little less like a decomposing vegetable—I might be sick and walk through life like a zombie, but at least I got to experience something fun, look at something beautiful and get some type of interesting human interaction. This way, I don’t just get to be sick and miserable and helpless and fear I don’t get to live my life to it’s fullest potential. I convince myself I’m trying as best I can and I just have to keep pulling hard on those boot-straps. Frustratingly, from the outside, this just looks like I'm jumping from one fun and picture perfect situation into the next. Oh well. While we're at it, let’s look at some more of those pretty pictures…
Can you see how we got photo bombed? Someone is peeking at us through the tulips :)
Yes, we’re trying to have fun despite it all. I'm hopeful that the coming weeks and months are going to be so much better. Also, as you might have guessed by seeing me without arctic gear and in a sundress—it's finally feeling like summer. We had 80 degrees all week and I couldn't be happier.
♡ Nina
♡ Nina
