Cache talkin

I was never one to have a lot of hobbies.  I mean, I read, I cook, I craft, pretty typical stuff.  Then I met Hubby, and he introduced me to the fantastic fun of geocaching.

Actually, the first time he explained to me what geocaching was, I thought it was the most stupid thing I had ever heard of.  They a year later, I asked him to try explaining it again, and suddenly, it was the most cool thing I ever heard of and I demanded he take me the very next day.

Geocaching is sort of like a grown up treasure hunt.  First, let me explain what a cache is.  Basically, a cache is a container that holds a log book, a pencil, and some "treasures", usually small things like yo-yos, stickers, bracelets, you know, the equivalent to a grown up cracker jack prize.  There are also micro caches which hold no treasures, just a place to write your name.  You join a site that lists the GPS coordinates for different caches, such as Geocaching.com, which is what we use.  There are, literally, caches hidden all over the world.

So, you get the coordinates for caches in the area you want to go geocaching.  Often the listings will include hints, or helpful info, as well as the difficulty level.  You see, the GPS coordinates get you within about 50 feet or so, and then, you have to search.  Once you find the cache, you open the log book and write the date and your name, and a little message.  You also wrote what item you took out, if any, and what item you left in it's place, if any. 

Hubby and I have gone several times, and we try to do a cache each time we go on a trip, in the trip location.  When we went to Deep Creek, we went geocaching on my birthday and the cache we found had some awesome and interesting stuff in it, including a guitar pick from Texas, and a mad of Rome.  However, the coolest thing in it and the thing which we chose to take was a travel bug.  A travel bug is a little dog tag that you buy from a geocaching supplier that is trackable through the website mentioned above.  You can set a goal for it, like, my goal is to have the bug travel to all 50 states, and then you can track the progress on the web site.  So, we took a bug from Maryland, and recently placed it in a cache in Pennsylvania. 

Not all our attempts have been successful.  There are times you do not find the cache, or caches get removed and never updated on the website.  Caches not properly weatherized will get ruined, etc.  Many people make their caches in old metal ammunition containers.  In fact, I bought Hubby a kit to make our own cache, and it was an ammo container with a sticker denoting it was an official geocache.  We have yet to plant the cache, still trying to decide where.

It is just so cool because you get to play with a GPS gadget, and when you find the cache, you can see how people from all over have found it and written in the log.  Sometimes a series of caches are placed as riddles or puzzles.  We have yet to try something like that.

So anyway, now you know for certain, as if there were ever any doubt, I am a big nerd at heart.  A big nerd who loves geocaching.

Tiffany's Tuesday Tunes: Looking Back at 2013

This year?  Kind of amazing.  Probably the most creative, fun filled, growth filled, challenging year I have had in my adult life.  I have spent so much time working on myself as a person, and while I am miles away from being perfect or even where I would like to be, overall I am really happy with me and with my life.  So many awesome things happened this year, we must review the highlights.

We papered our floor with book pages.  It took two months, and was back breaking work, but we transformed our living room into a work of art.

I completed a 35 Day Project in honor of my 35th birthday.  35 days of random acts of kindness.  Many of my friends and family members participated as well.  It was amazing.

We watched our nephew graduate from high school.

We reached two geocaching milestones.  We found our 200th geocache, then we cached every day for the entire month of August, our longest streak ever.  I also got to introduce my niece, nephew and his girlfriend, brother and brother in law to geocaching.

We watched our good friends get married.

We visited many of the filming locations from the movie The Shawshank Redemption.

We watched my brother get married.  Later on in the summer we got to visit them and see their new house as well.

We went to our first comics show.

I saw the largest yarn bombing in America, also known as Knit the Bridge.  It was while my niece was visiting us, so I took her to see it.  It was one of the many awesome things we did together during her visit.

We saw John Hodgman perform, and met him after the show.  He totally knew our names, because we had been all over social media talking about the show.  Later, when I reviewed the show, he shared my post.  I was so ridiculously star struck over the whole thing.

We saw the giant rubber duck make its way into Pittsburgh and attended the huge party on the bridge.

We took a whirlwind trip to New York City to see John Roderick and The Long Winters perform.

I made an entire Christmas Tree's decorations out of old book pages.  It is so beautiful I cannot yet bring myself to take it down, despite the fact that it has been up since before Thanksgiving.

I was offered pretty much the perfect job for me.  I have been there for a month now, and the giddiness still has not faded.

So, this a look back at my year.  Pretty amazing, right?  I kind of think of it as a montage.  And every montage needs a soundtrack.  So here are some of my favorite songs from 2013 to go along with my look back at this wonderful year.

Munzee Mania

I have written numerous times about how much Hubby and I love to geocache.  A few weeks ago, we found our first cache of the year, and we were off and running.  Last weekend, we found our 100th geocache.  Now, I know a lot of cachers break a hundred within their first month, but we have been real casual cachers, so this was kind of a big deal for us.

However, I have recently become addicted to something new.  This thing is called the munzee.

While out looking for a geocache, I stumbled upon a QR code hidden near the cache location.  Being the nosey person I am, I pulled out my smart phone, used my code scanner, and decided to see what the code was for.  It directed my phone to download an application called Munzee.  Basically, these codes are hidden in different locations, and, like geocaches, you use the GPS coordinated to find the location of the codes.  Once you locate the code, you scan it with the application on your smartphone, and it registers that you have "captured" the code.  In short, it is paperless geocaching.  I was instantly hooked.  In the three weeks since then, I have captured 44 munzees.

Each munzee is worth points, and by collecting points, you go up in levels.  But there is another way to earn points, by deploying your own munzees.  Tonight, Hubby and I deployed our first munzees ever.  I noticed that some areas near me have virtually no munzees, so these are the areas we hit tonight.  I plan on deploying more soon.  It is so easy, you go to the munzee website, and you can create the codes there.  Then you print them, weatherize them, and off you go to deploy them.

I am someone who much prefers urban geocaches to the ones in the woods, so munzees really appeal to me.  While they too can be hidden in the woods, I have found most to be more out in the open.  It is a quick way to make a find without fighting ticks.  Perfect for this girl!

So, if any of you are geocachers, I hope you will check out munzees as well.  And feel free to add Hubby and I as friends on both the geocaching and munzee websites, our user name in both places is "Coase".

Happy Hunting!

Armstrong County Geocache Trail

I have mentioned a couple of times that Hubby and I like to geocache.  Up until now, we have been very casual cachers, not really logging our finds, just doing it more for the heck of it.  Then, I heard that our county  Tourist Bureau was going to be sponsoring a Geocache Trail.  They would be hiding 26 caches all over the county.  You get a special book to record your finds in, and once you find 20, you can get take the booklet to the Tourist Bureau and get a geocoin.  Suddenly, the spirit of competition got to me, and we were off.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Hubby and I found the 16 caches that had been made public up to that point.  Because they were spread throughout the county, we did certain areas on certain days.

 Then, last week, more were released, and we found enough to get our coin.

I have to say, this was probably one of the most fun projects we have undertaken as a couple.  We went to each cache site together, though in a couple of instances Hubby retrieved the cache alone (I had to avoid poison ivy).

The weather was simply stunning each day we went out, and I got some fantastic pictures,  not only of the cache sites, but things we saw along the way.

 On our first cache, we even picked up a travelling companion- a very friendly caterpillar.

Since we started working on the trail, my love for geocaching has really taken off, and I have done a lot of caches myself while Hubby is at work.  But in terms of every cache on the trail, we did it together.  I could have done the last ones alone, but I really wanted this to be something we earn together.

Now I wonder what my next caching goal should be?  One from every county in PA?  One beginning with each letter of the alphabet?  By the time the summer ends, I would love to have found 100 caches.  We are at about 58 right now, so I think we can make that goal.

I am really thankful to the Armstrong County Tourist Bureau for sponsoring this.  I loved revisiting some of my favorite places in the county, and finding a few new favorites as well.

To see all the gorgeous shots I got while geocaching, check out my album here.

Thankful for.... disappointments.

I am the kind of person who really gets her heart set on things.  I get my hopes up, and when things do not work out perfectly as planned, I get a little, well, grumpy.  Such was the case on Saturday mornings.  Hubby and I had the day all planned.  We were dropping his car of to get inspected, and while we were waiting, we were going to  head to a used book store to trade books in for credit.  Seemed like a great plan.

When we arrived at the garage for the inspection, they were not yet open.  Our appointment was for 10 am, and right around that time, the mechanic showed up, looking puzzled.  It seemed that the office manager never told him about the appointment, and he was actually just there to pick something up, not to open the garage.  He was on his way somewhere with his daughter, so there was no way he could do the inspection, which is due by the end of the month.  Since Hubby does not get home until late, this was pretty much our only option.  The guy did offer to stay late on Monday to do it, as a way to make up for it.  But still, we were disappointed, as this would now change our routine for Monday.

So, we still went to the used book store.  I had a ton of books to trade.  All brand new, many were hardback.  And all relatively newer releases.  I had at least 25 books in the box, and hoped to get about $30 dollars in store credit.  I was sad to learn, once the store owner evaluated the books, that my store credit would be less than $12 dollars.  I decided to still take it, as I needed to get rid of the books, but I was not pleased at all.

Not surprisingly, after this, Hubby and I were a bit, well, grumpy.  Nothing was going our way.  I talked him into us just going to a ride, looking for photo opportunities.  I do this a lot, and it was fun for him to come along.  And I certainly did get some great pictures.

Check out this 88 Oldsmobile, my guess is from the 60's.

Symbolic of the death of quality television perhaps?

Miniature waterfall, on some random back road.

So, we were a little perked up a little.  And then, as we were driving, we saw a historical site that we decided to stop at, for more photo ops, and lo and behold, we stumbled upon a geocache!  I was so stinking excited!

Geocaching is a hobby we both enjoy, and had just been saying that the weather was improving enough for us to go soon.  This is the second time we have found a geocache when we were not actually looking for one.  Finding this one really energized us to get back into geocaching.  We usually do one each time we take a trip anywhere, so on some upcoming trips I am sure we will be hunting for some.

It is funny, but finding that geocache really turned our day around.  We were laughing and having fun.  We had a great lunch, and later we did some work in the yard, including putting out some bird feeders.  So, I am convinced that had we not had such a disappointing morning, we would not have appreciated the afternoon nearly so much.

As the giant moon rose last night, I once again remembered to be thankful for all my blessings, even the disappointments.

Out of Town: Gravity Hill in Bedford Pennsylvania

It is not unusual for us to wake up one weekend morning and decide to go on a day trip, usually bringing the dogs along.  So, when I suggested to Hubby that we travel to Bedford PA to visit Gravity Hill a few weeks ago, this request was not that unusual.  Now, Gravity Hill is just a spot, on a county road, where, for a few minutes, you can defy gravity, and your car will roll uphill with no assistance from any person, just gravity doing a crazy trick.

Since this was a pretty far trip to take, just for that one spot, we decided to visit Gravity Hill in conjunction with a driving tour of several covered bridges in the area.  We picked a beautiful day for our outing, had we thought ahead a little more we probably would have done some geocaching in the area.  Luckily there are two other driving tours in that county, so I bet I can talk Hubby into going back with promises of geocaches to be found in historical places!

The tour took about 90 minutes give or take (we had a slight set back due to a road being blocked with a traffic accident).  We got to see some really pretty bridges, and enjoy the beautiful day.

  Most of the bridges were well maintained, but one of the last onse was covered in grafitti, which I personally found pretty interesting.

And who can forget the whole motivation for our visit, Gravity Hill. Well, it literally is just a spot marked on a road, where, when you put your car in neutral and take your foot off of the brake, your car rolls uphill. Pretty interesting, and just another example of the strange things you can sometimes find in Pennsylvania.

View the rest of the photoset here.

Explorations: Buttermilk Falls

Yesterday, Hubby and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather, and go exploring a little. We tried to go geocaching, but that did not work out too well since we did not have the correct GPS coordinates, so instead we decided to just go for a walk. We went to Buttermilk Falls, and hiked a little. We did not go too far back on the trail, since we had Dexter with us, but I did at least get a chance to get some lovely pictures. It was a nice, peaceful time together, something we really needed, since the weekend was pretty busy. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu 2010

Well, 2010 is coming to a close.  I thought the best way to reflect on my year was through pictures.

January

What a rough winter.  I felt like the snow was never going away.  So the only option we had was to make the best of a bad situation and go play in the snow.  Even Nora made some snow angels.

February

Our first Valentine's Day as husband and wife!  I wanted to make it really special, so I decorated the house, cooked a delicious dinner, and made a cake.  Hubby came home with roses for me.  It was a perfect day.  This is also the month I started my blog!

March

We are adjusting to life with a puppy.  Dexter joined our family after Valentine's Day, and we immediately fell in love with him.  Our lives will never be the same.

April

Hubby took me and Dexter on a mini vacation to Deep Creek, Maryland for my birthday.  It was a little chilly, but that did not stop us from at least dipping our toes in the lake.  We visited Antietam and Harpers Ferry,  as well as Burkittsville, and thoroughly enjoyed the trip.  On my actual birthday, we left to come home, but not before going geocaching.  Once home, my friends threw me a surprise birthday party.  Once again, it was a perfect day.

May

We surprised our friend J, whose girlfriend E planned a birthday night out at Ruths Chris.  He had no idea we were going, and we had a great time.  After dinner, we, along with E and J, and J and M, frolicked in the fountains in Pittsburgh.  Later on in the month, E and J got engaged in Paris.  It was a great month of surprises for wonderful friends.  Also, Hubby and my dad replaced our dining room floor, and built a fence for our yard.  It is finally sinking in that this is home!

June

Hubby and I went to visit my brother and Paul in Columbus.  We packed so many fun things into just two days.  We went to Katzinger's Deli, the Book Loft, a cute little seafood restaurant we dubbed The Old Man and the Sea, I introduced them to Rita's Ice, and Paul gave me a fabulous photo shoot of glamour shots.  It was so much fun!  This month J and I went to the Arts Festival, and Hubby and I participated in the Relay for Life.

July

This month was packed with celebration!  There was the Big Butler Fair, July 4th Baker party, Ford City Heritage days, my parents' anniversary, the Folk Festival, just so much summer fun packed into this month.  It's no wonder I decided late in July to try to start losing weight!

August

August marked the one year anniversary of us buying our house, so we celebrated with an ice cream social.  So many of our wonderful friends came to the party, many of them seeing the house for the first time.  We had tons of goodies, lots of laughs, and (gosh I am getting repetitive) it was a perfect day.  And I started seeing some weight loss this month as well.

September

This month was Hubby's birthday, and we had a whole weekend of celebration!  We went to visit Fort Necessity on his birthday, went to a Pirate's game, and had a Labor Day cookout with family.  Later in the month we went to Podcamp, participated in our block party, and also hit up some fall festivals.

October

One year of marriage down, a lifetime to go!  It was our first wedding anniversary this month.  We went on an adventure, had a wonderful dinner, then later shared the top layer of our wedding cake with our friends.  It was delicious!  Later, the month was filled with 80s birthdays, spooky parties, fun fundraisers, and a zombie opera.  Lots of Halloween fun!

November

So much awesomeness this month!  We redid our bathroom and dining room, I got my first massage, we reconnected with Podcamp friends, and got to dress up once again for Prohibition Night!  We also attended and had tons of fun at a teen birthday party.  This is also the month I started getting really involved with the Kindness Movement, and tried to raise awareness for Pancreatic Cancer.  We went to my first ever Light Up Night.  Oh, and in between all these things, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for my family, and we went to our first official Pens game.

December

Yet another busy month!  I collected Toys for Tots, we got our first snow of the winter, did some Christmas Caroling, had a wonderful Christmas, and got another puppy!  Whew!  You know, a lot of people think I have no life because I am so involved with social media, or because I do not work full time, but looking back over the year, I can easily see how busy, full, and enriching my life actually is.  I would not have it any other way!

So, there is a snapshot of my year.  It was full of wonderful memories, supportive family, fabulous friends, and the unconditional love of my Hubby.  Is it any wonder I rave about how blessed I am?
Happy New Year to you and yours, from me and mine!

Tiffany's Tuesday Tunes: Q is for Quirky

I am, well, unusual.  I have very nerdy interests, like Doctor Who and geocaching.  I read (a lot) while most people are watching things like the Oscars and Superbowl.  I think cemeteries and abandoned buildings are beautiful.  I am most content at home with my hubby and dogs.  I love my job more than words can express, to the point where I am willing to make a fool of myself for it.  To put it nicely, I am quirky.

It used to be that quirky was not a word one would want used to describe him or herself.  But in the age of the hipster, quirkiness is not only cool, it is almost required.  Which is fine by me.  I take a look at the interests I hold, and the people I surround myself, the kinds of things I spend my time doing, and I cannot help but smile.  I am exactly the kind of person I would want to be friends with.  I know I am not everyone's taste, and that is ok, that keeps life interesting.  But I make no attempts to change who I am to make someone else more comfortable.

My advice to you?  Find your quirks, embrace them, flaunt them, love them.  Here is your soundtrack.

Thankful for... impromptu date nights

It is a holiday long weekend; Hubby and I spent Thursday traveling and visiting my family, yesterday was spent visiting local friends and doing online Christmas shopping.  So today was our day to just relax.  We had no set plans, which of course meant I awoke bright and early.  Since I knew I would not get back to sleep, I took advantage of the time to get some things done around the house, and then surprised Hubby with breakfast.  I attempted to do some shopping after that, and was largely unsuccessful.  When I came home, I made a delicious meal for lunch, took a bubble bath, and took a nice long nap.  Our day of relaxation was going well.

After my nap, we finished our Thanksgiving leftovers, and discussed what we would do tonight.  Before I knew it, Hubby and I had made plans for in impromptu date night at the movies.  Funny how those things happen.  We got ready right after dinner and went to see the last movie in the Twilight series.  We are not huge fans of the movies, but we have seen them all, and at this point we were too invested to not see them through.  The series first started when we were just dating, so of course we had to go.  Again, I am not a huge fan on the movies, though this was the best of the five, and I will say, the movie is beautifully photographed, from the opening titles to the closing credits.

I love that Hubby and I still go on dates.  Sometimes, like tonight, they are traditional date activities (dinner, movies, etc.), and sometimes they are just adventures (long car rides, geocaching, etc.).  I love that no matter what we are doing, we always have fun.  I am so thankful that I met this wonderful man, and finally allowed him into my life after his many months of patient waiting.  I am thankful that every day he is by my side, to make me laugh, to hold my hand, to love me.  I am thankful that he shares my hopes, dreams, goals, and values.  I am thankful that, even after over 4 years together, he still gives me butterflies on date night.

Thankful for... a wake up call

I was always an early riser.  From the time I was about 13 to my 30s, I would wake up at 5:30 most mornings.  Part of this was out of necessity, because the school bus came at 7, and then when I entered the working world the habit just stuck.  I would get a lot of things done before I would need to be out the door for the day.  However, since I have been out of the full time work force, I have gotten out of the habit of being an extreme early riser.  An early morning for me now is about 7 am.  I enjoy the luxury of sleeping in.  Especially since, with my periodic insomnia, I often do not fall asleep until after 1 or 2 am.

The past week, my sleep schedule has been way off, so I finally forced myself, on Thursday night, to go to bed early and take some melatonin to insure sleep.  It is a good thing, too, because Hubby called me at 7 am on his way to work to ask me to check on something for him.  He felt really bad that he had made me get out of bed so early, but it turned out to be a very good thing.

It forced me to get moving early.  As a result, I was out the door by 8 am to do a little geocaching.  As I drove to my location, I watched the sun burning of the fog that had settled low in the hills.  I reached my destination, and saw a breathtaking sight.  A lovely little waterfall tucked away in a patch of woods.  There was not another soul around, and I felt so much peace.  It was the absolute perfect way to begin the day.

So, I am very thankful that Hubby called and made me get up early.  It was just the wake up call I needed.

Out of Town: Presque Isle

For my birthday, we usually take a short trip out of town.  Typically it is somewhere within 3 hour driving distance.  This year, we chose Erie, and we decided to take the dogs with us.

On Monday morning, off we went.  Since it is only a 2 hour drive to Erie, we thought we would go early, and enjoy some of the sites before we checked into our room.  Our first destination was Presque Isle.

This peninsula  juts out into lake Erie, providing lots of places for swimming, fishing, and generally enjoying nature.

 Most people visit in the summer, when the activities are more plentiful (and I suspect we will be making a return trip in the summer).  Unfortunately, the weather was not as cooperative as I would have liked, but I still managed to get some amazing pictures.

If you are a bird watcher or lover, Presque Isle is a great place to go.

 Just walking along, we saw tons of different birds.  My goal was to take an awesome picture of a gull, but it was a lot harder than it looked.  In the end, I got a so so picture of one, which was good enough for me, because my fingers were starting to freeze (it was sleeting and snowing).

 I can only imagine how nice it is to photograph the birds in late Spring/ early Summer.

Presque Isle is home to 2 lighthouses as well.  I have always liked lighthouses, so it was fun to go visit these ones.  The first one we visited, we walked all the way out to the end of the pier to see it up close.

 By the time we got to the second one, it was snowing pretty good, so we looked at it from afar (i.e. inside the car).

We saw some amazing houseboats as well. It made me want to buy one immediately, and spend my entire summer on the lake.

Finally, we kept up our tradition of out of town geocaching by finding a geocache at Presque Isle.  As always, we were excited to find the cache, and perhaps will do more caching in the Erie area in the future.

We wanted to spend a little time on the beach, and let the doggies run a bit, but it was so cold and nasty out, we had to skip it.

The beaches are very pretty however, and hopefully we will get to experience them sometime soon.

All in all, we spent about 3 hours on Presque Isle. Trust me, on a nice day, I could have spent 3 times as long there, but with it being cold, snowy, windy and rainy, 3 hours was good enough.

If you are interested, you can see all my photos from the first day of our trip here.