My pelican friends

The edge of Todos Santos Bay, Ensenada, Baja California

This is the bay we live on. This picture was taken today from the backyard of a house my friend is house sitting. It's on a cliff, very close to the mouth of the bay on the opposite side from Ensenada. We live almost in the center of the U which is the bay. What is that called? The bottom? We look straight out towards the ocean. Her place is beautiful. We sat there this afternoon watching pelicans soaring- but since we were up on the cliff, the pelicans were at eye level- they were amazing! The colors were changing as we watched. The deepest greens slowly changing to lighter coral greens and then back to dark. But I must say, as beautiful as it was, I prefer being closer to the water; we can't see as many dramatic changes in colors- or the cliffs....but I can touch it! I can breathe it in...my silly dogs can run in and splash around.

There were soooo many pelicans out there! In front of our place the land - that's when I call them a pelican convention, but here they flew along the shoreline, then out over the water, then back. I could hear sea lions barking near the tuna rings....probly trying to get to all the bait fish in the rings that the tunas must munch on. Those damn tuna rings- too soon our beautiful bay will be stripped of all its bait fish, then the dolphins and seals and sea lions won't come.....I read it will take at least 50 years for the bay to recover, and by then these rings will have moved on to ruin the ecology of another beautiful bay...

Oh- so today with our dogs & the beach! While I was out visiting my friend, Everardo took the dogs running with him. He runs on the beach and Hazel runs circles around him. Sam trots alongside, stopping to sniff interesting stuff that's come in with the tide. It's funny because he has a bad leg, after a long day he is stiff and sore...limpy. He can't run too far, and can only run really fast for a short time. But he can jog along with Everardo in the sand. Anyway, today as they were running, Poppi passed a seal asleep on the beach - actually he wasn't sure if it was a seal or a sea lion - he didn't actually see it as he went by, but Hazel did. She went up and sniffed the seal's tail and the seal woke up and barked at Hazel. Our Hazel wanted to play. She kept wanting to sniff nose to nose- that what she did last summer with Bob the sea lion- the injured on we found on the beach. That one was so tired, he let Hazel and Sam both come close and didn't shy away. I didn't have my camera then but I swear Hazel and Bob did touch noses. I mean Bob let me stroke him and gently pour water on him those days he recuperated on the beach. And then he was gone. But today, this seal was ok...barked at Hazel and then went back into the water. Hazel followed (of course)....Poppi said it was funny- Hazel followed and the seal kept looking back. He was a little worried that the seal would attack Hazel once in the water, but when it was finally a little deeper, he gave a last look and dove away. So if we lived out on a beautiful cliff, we would miss that.

I wrote yesterday about my health commitment to myself. I felt like since it takes up so much of my time right now, that I should include it in my blog. I kinda wish I didn't....at least the part about how much weight I wanted to lose, how much I have so far...I woke up feeling pressured- and ha ha I did it to myself! It has been private up until now, something I'm doing for myself. Now I have set up an expectation for myself. Well there's only one way to fix this. To say it is still my journey. That I will continue for myself. I may continue to write about it here however not in the same detail I think. I'll say this- I'm still planning to start the zumba class Tuesday morning at 8am- but I don't know where the place is ha ha. Also Everardo is leaving at about 4am Tuesday for Penasco to renew our car & truck registrations so he won't be here. And my goal is actually simply to learn some new steps for my own dancing, to maybe bump up my exercise program for a month or so, and then let it go. Unless of course I find I love leaving the house at 7:45am at least twice a week ha ha. Yeah I doubt that will happen. I like the idea of not fixing things that aren't broken. I like getting up at 7:30 or 7:45, then having coffee and not starting my exercise routine until 9am. I plan to return to that routine in 3 or 4 weeks. I did have an awesome dinner tonite- a huge plate of steamed broccoli, green beans, garlic and a half pound of fresh shrimp. Stuffed me good. I did have my glass of carrots and beets earlier too! The juicer rules!

This past week I've tried halving my ingredients for my protein shake....but I found myself hungry not long after. I'll have to think about it & decide if it's how I want to go forward. The thing is with half the shake I can have other things during the afternoon...well maybe I can do it different on different days, right? So today is day one of month 11.

I can't believe it's Feb 1!! Funny- I looked at my blog for today last year and I was talking about going to zumba on Monday! Well this time it will be just Tue/Thur and in the morning not 6pm in the afternoon. It was when we just moved into this trailer, about Sam & Hazel running all over the beach- so my writing is not that different ha ha. But and this is huge- I wrote about having a migraine and how panic attacks always proceeded them, and about the woman in the pharmacy who gave me the "magic pill" that I could only take a quarter of that cured my headache. I have not had a migraine since I got those pills; a couple of times during 2014 I felt one coming on, I felt a panic attack coming on- there's always something I can smell...a funny taste in my mouth. But they're gone! No more panic attacks equal no more migraines for me! I got a prescription for those pills, and Poppi took one when he got stung by the jellyfish....but the qty 30 they gave me will still last me the rest of my life!

The weather was pretty nice this time last year and if the news is correct we are heading into good weather this week. Yippee if that means the nites will be warmer! ok well that's all for now I think. I'll let you know how early morning group zumba goes- should be interesting after 10 months of dancing alone on the beach- doing whatever I wanted....yeah at the senior stretching class I sort of make up some of the steps to get more out of it...I twirl and jump ha ha! However I suspect the zumba class will kick my ass at first since I have become a believer of the fast & slow exercise concept- to rev up my heart rate for a song or two, then do an easy one to slow my heart back down...then back up....so....vamos a ver, right?
viva