My Blog Has Moved

Hi All!

The time has come for my blog to make the move over to WordPress. All new posts can be found at https://misadventuresofanaturejunkie.wordpress.com/. I hope you'll wander over, take a look, and subscribe so you'll get email updates everytime I post something new. Thanks for following my journey this far and I hope you'll stay in touch through my new site.

Thank you,
Kristin

Four Years an Oregonian!

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."

~Thornton Wilder~

Today I celebrate my fourth year as an Oregonian. On this day, four years ago, I arrived in Portland after driving 2,000 miles over the span of three days from Wisconsin, car packed to the brim with only the essentials: Cole, my camera, camping gear, laptop, bike, and clothes. The laptop crashed somewhere in Utah and my bike was stolen within 6-months of arriving in Portland but Cole and I remain intact. Since that blustery hot day of my arrival, I have been on a mission to explore the Pacific Northwest in every direction, feeding my soul with all that the area has to offer and this past year has been no exception. In addition to my adventures in nature that I've come to expect year after year, there have been a few transformational occurrences as well.

I hiked the Bayocean Penninsula on the coast, the Deschutes River in the Columbia River Gorge, and various trails in Forest Park in Portland. I camped and hiked with friends at Northrup Creek in the Clatsop State Forest and took several road trips to Eastern Oregon exploring rivers, waterfalls, state parks, and abandoned towns and buildings. I also took several road trips to the coast to explore beaches, state parks, islands, and creeks. Most memorable this year, I took a day trip to Panther Creek Falls on the Washington side of the Columbia River. Not only is it memorable because of the slackliner I got to watch balance high above the rocks below while Panther Creek Falls rushed down in the background, but that was the day the Eagle Creek fire broke out, forever altering roughly 50,000 acres of the pristine landscape on the Oregon side of the Columbia River.

Outside of my adventures in nature, there were a handful of other excursions this year as well. Thousands of people flocked to Oregon for a front row seat to the solar eclipse. I chose to stay put in Portland but I did wander over to the Willamette River waterfront to photograph the people that gathered there to watch the eclipse. I finally attended the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival this year, albeit on a rather rainy and muddy afternoon. As has become a yearly tradition, I attended all three nights of the Banff Center Mountain Film Festival at Cinema 21, an event that always stokes my appreciation for the outdoors, the triumph of the human spirit, and the art of filmmaking. For the first year ever, Cole, looking quite dapper in his pug-tux, and I attended the Pug Crawl, a fundraiser for the Oregon Humane Society. I spent the fourth of July with a friend in the West Hills and had a panoramic view of everyone's fireworks display, from Vancouver to Gresham. And what year would be complete without a couple of concerts? This past year I got to see Leif Vollebekk perform at the Doug Fir Lounge and the Wood Brothers at the Crystal Ballroom, both spectacular shows.

After suffering some health issues suspected to be chronic fatigue, I learned to slow down and began exploring the concept of minimalism. I quickly realized that minimalism was helping me to focus on what was most important in my life and the things that truly mattered. I began hosting monthly dinner parties as an opportunity to stretch my culinary muscle while also spending quality time with the people who are important to me. I sold and donated many of my belongings, including chopping off 8-inches of my hair. I also realized that financial freedom was one very big key to so many things that I had been seeking so I decided to sell my car, and downsize to a studio apartment to save money and pay off debts. It also helped me decide that it was time to finally drop my ex-husband's last name and choose a whole new last name to start a legacy that was truly mine, all while honoring Cole's significance in my life.

My photography endeavors were as varied as my experiences this past year. I finally began my Legacy project, a portrait and storytelling series of childless women over the age of 60. I opened my Etsy shop to sell photographic prints and merchandise and also converted my photography website to a new (and free) platform. I launched a new second website that helps the female traveler and her canine companion navigate all that Oregon has to offer a nature enthusiast. I had my first photographs published in a book and I also participated in my first ever PDX Squared photo contest. I learned of the Immigrant Story at one of the brown bag lectures at the Portland Art Museum and felt compelled to get involved so I started volunteering as a writer/photographer with their organization dedicated to combating xenophobia. Lastly, I donated again to the annual ShelterCare Art Gives Hope fundraiser, this year two color prints on glass, while also attending the event in Eugene to see the bidders in action.

As usual, Cole was by my side throughout all of the adventures this year, having a spectacular time hanging his head out the car window, running on beaches, leading the way on hiking trails, and getting in some quality play time with his pug friends. Unfortunately, he suffered some setbacks too including a urinary tract infection, an ear infection, a ripped dew claw from playing so hard during a playdate, a stomach bug that had both of us not feeling so hot, and even a strained leg muscle from overdoing it at the dog park shortly after our move to our new neighborhood. It seems his age may be starting to catch up with him so I got him some stairs to help make getting on and off the bed a little easier, as well as a nice big comfy dog bed, in case he ever not feels up for the climb into bed.

I, too, have dealt with my own fair share of health issues this past year. In addition to the chronic fatigue, I have experienced a lot more than normal back issues. After yet another muscle pull that had me laid up for three days, I decided to talk to my primary care physician to see if we could do some new imaging to get an idea on what's been going on in my back since my surgery 13 years ago. That imaging accidentally found a mass on my kidney, suspected to be kidney cancer, which would have otherwise gone unnoticed for possibly another decade. Never have I been so grateful for my chronic back issues until now. I am now awaiting surgery scheduled for July 20th to remove the mass via a robotic-assisted laparoscopic partial nephrectomy. I am looking at a 6-week recovery time but then should be as good as new again and can resume my Pacific Northwest adventures with Cole.

Overall, it has been quite the year. Despite not having family nearby, I still feel truly lucky to call Oregon home. There are so many beautiful natural places, talented artists, and delicious food spots. I've come to greater appreciate the friends I've made and connections I've built with my coworkers since moving here. So much has happened in the four years since that day I took a leap of faith and decided to pursue a new life in the Pacific Northwest. With a renewed appreciation for the fragility that is each of our lives, I look forward to seeing what this next year brings. I suspect the sunsets will look a little more colorful, the spring flowers will smell a little sweeter, and my bucket list will have a little fewer items left unchecked.

Watch this video for a tribute to

my fourth year as an Oregonian.

Lucky Accidents

Peter Iredale shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park

I've found myself rather busy these past few months. I completed the transition of my photography website to a new (and virtually free) platform, I saw the Wood Brothers perform at the Crystal Ballroom, and my (aka Bender's) guacamole recipe won the appetizer category of a charity cook-off event. Cole and I traveled with a friend to Astoria for the opening of Austin Granger's Correspondence exhibit at the Lightbox Gallery followed by a quick visit to Fort Stevens State Park to catch the Peter Iredale shipwreck amid a spectacular sunset.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival

I hosted a housewarming/birthday party on St. Patrick's day and even had the opportunity to grab a birthday drink a couple days later with a previously Facebook-only friend who just happened to be in town for a night while traveling back to Michigan. I was treated to a spectacular performance of Hamilton at the Keller Auditorium after a lovely dinner on the opening day of the eagerly anticipated Porter Hotel. I resumed hosting my Second Saturday Soirees and finally attended the very muddy Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn one rainy afternoon.

Urban Landscape submission for PDX Squared 2018

Keeping with tradition, I attended all three nights of the Banff Center Mountain Film Festival World Tour at Cinema 21 and also started volunteering with an amazing organization called The Immigrant Story as a photographer/writer. I donated another two prints to ShelterCare's Art Gives Hope fundraiser in Eugene and went head to head with a hitchhiking yellow sac spider in the rental car on the way home the night of the event. I participated for the first time ever in the annual PDX Squared photo contest as well as the Oregon Humane Society's Pug Crawl parade.

Hiking in Forest Park on Memorial Day

And last but not least, completed my first hike of the season with a small group of friends in Forest Park on Memorial Day.

Amid all of that fun, I suffered several incidents where my back went out. Realizing that it had been 13 years since my back surgery, I figured it might be useful to get some new imaging done to see if it could help explain what was going on. My primary care physician at Legacy Medical Group scheduled an MRI for May 26th. Shockingly, that scan didn't provide a lot of useful information to explain my back pain but did reveal a 3.4 cm mass on my left kidney which would have otherwise gone unnoticed, possibly for another 10 years.  A CT scan was immediately scheduled for May 31st to get a closer look. That image showed information that was not reassuring to my primary care physician so I was referred to a urologist at the Oregon Clinic. After meeting with the urologist on June 7th, it was determined the best course of treatment would be to perform a robotic-assisted laparoscopic partial nephrectomy to remove the mass, suspected to be kidney cancer.

Swimming in the very large hospital gown pre-MRI

The four-hour surgery will be performed on Friday, July 20th at Adventist Medical Center in Portland. After at least 2-nights in the hospital, recovery at home is expected to take 6-weeks. During that time, without family nearby, I will need to rely on friends in the Portland-area to help care for Cole, prepare meals, get to and from doctor appointments, and pick up prescriptions. As a rather self-sufficient, independent, type-A personality who has been taking care of myself pretty much since the age of 16, this is going to prove to be a rather a difficult process for me. All in all, I realize I am incredibly lucky. The mass was caught early and I am expected to be deemed cancer-free as soon as it is removed from my body. I should not need any radiation or chemotherapy, they'll just need to monitor my kidney with CT scans and/or ultrasounds for approximately 7-years to make sure the mass doesn't come back. Once fully recovered from surgery, I should not notice any difference in my day to day life and I should be able to resume my adventures with Cole and friends exploring and photographing the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

If you would like to keep current with my condition and recovery please visit my Meal Train site. To help financially, you may make a donation through that site, or you can help by purchasing one of my photography prints here.

The Birth of a Legacy: Kristin Cole Photography

Dear Followers,

Once upon a time, I was married. Twice in fact, but this post is about the last time, not the first time I was married. This second marriage is how I came to have the last name of Roosmalen. I'm not married anymore, so why do I still have this last name? Having changed my last name from Sowinski to Kleifgen and then back to Sowinski after my first marriage ended, and then to Roosmalen after the second marriage, I was not eager to go through the name change process yet again after the second divorce. During my second marriage, I had also done a lot of work to make a name for myself in the community and develop connections with people throughout the country and other parts of the world. Part of me was worried I'd lose some of my social capital by changing my name. I figured it was just a name. What did it really matter? As years went by, I slowly began to regret my decision.

The relationship with my ex-husband ended in the most absurd act when he chose Valentine's day as the day to confess he never loved me and that he wanted a divorce. As if that were not enough, I also learned he was having an affair with a woman in his accounting class. They had even spent time in our home while I was away on the east coast for a work trip. Our entire relationship was a lie.  Every day for five years he told me he loved me. Every. Single. Day. These were not small "I love you's", they were arms stretched as wide as they could reach to convey how much he loved me "I love you's". And every bit of it was a lie and I had no idea. If a person I trusted and loved could hide the truth like this from me, how in the world would I ever trust another person again? This is something that plagued my life (and relationships) for years. At one point after the divorce, I even contemplated suicide. It was not a good time to be me.

Fast forward nine years later to today and I'm living my dream of living in and photographing Oregon and it's pretty darn amazing. When it comes to my photography, I've received awards, had work accepted into juried shows and included in art auctions, have been published in books, and have even given public presentations. I've truly begun to make a name for myself in the photographic community. But wait. It's not my name at all. It's HIS name. I decided 2018 would be the year I would officially put that all behind me and reclaim my identity. After a simple online search, I discovered it was quite easy for one to change their last name in Oregon. All I needed to do was simply fill out a form, pay a fee with the cashier at the courthouse, and wait for the paperwork to come in the mail. All I needed to do to get the ball rolling was choose my new last name. My first thought was to go back to my maiden name but something about that didn't quite feel right. So if I didn't want to go back to my maiden name, and I could choose any name I wanted, what name should I choose?

As I've been working on my photography these past few years, I have given a lot of thought to my art, my brand, and my life. What does it all stand for? What do I want my legacy to be? What name would encapsulate the essence of all the answers to those questions? It didn't take long for a name to come to mind: Cole. My pug, Cole, came into my life shortly after my marriage ended and I took a new job managing an animal shelter. Cole was surrendered by a woman who recently went through her own divorce and found she didn't have the time for him that he needed. I instantly fell in love with him while filling out his surrender paperwork and quickly proclaimed to the other staff members that I would be adopting him. Although that job ended up being a bit of a disaster, I'm fairly certain it was destined to be so he and I could meet. We were both abandoned by those who were supposed to love us most. We shared a deep scar that no one else could see but us.

I often refer to Cole as the best thing that ever happened to me. He has remained steadfast in all of my adventures. He rides shotgun on every road trip and snuggles into my sleeping bag at night on each camping trip. Every great photo I capture and share, it is he who is by my side, just out of the frame. He's watched each time as I packed up our belongings and moved us either across the country or just across the city. He sleeps by my side every night and snuggles with me every morning, it's truly a miracle I ever get out of bed and to work. I rarely feel lonely because he's always curiously watching me every step of the way and interjecting his own antics along the way that make me laugh. He brings great joy not just to my life but to everyone we meet along the way. Ask anyone who has ever met him and they can attest to what a special little soul he is.

Cole is a kind, adventurous, loving, and beautiful little being that is thoroughly infused into every trip to the coast and hike into the mountains of my Pacific Northwest adventures. He is just as much a part of the creative process as I am. He represents everything I want my life to stand for. What better way to honor the importance he has in my life and to create a legacy through my art that will live long after his time here is complete? Cue the birth of Kristin Cole and Kristin Cole Photography. As I begin to change my name on social media, I hope you'll remember my journey to this name and what it stands for when you see it. Cole and I still have many more adventures to look forward to, I hope you'll continue to follow along on our journey.

Sincerely,

Kristin Cole

New Year, New Beginnings

Cole and his buddy Spike pooped out on New Years Eve

Cole and I rang in the New Year with a very small group of friends at home. We ate pizza and played games while the dogs played games of their own. We called it a night shortly after watching the ball drop. It was a wonderful, impromptu, low-key night and exactly what the doctor ordered after my rough end to the year. Since my apartment lease was up for renewal just around the time the new hotel next door was nearing completion, I decided to look around town and see what else was out there. It didn't take long at all to find a super cute studio apartment in Northwest Portland near all my favorite shops and restaurants. Since the place I was living at was unwilling to negotiate the rent increase and the place was running such a great deal on rent, I put in my notice and spent the next month or so preparing to downsize before the move. I sold a lot more things including my couch, coffee table, end table, dresser, and several pieces of art.

Cole on moving day

Unfortunately, this is right about the time my old back issues stopped in for a visit not just once, but three times within the month. I began to worry that I might be approaching the need for another back surgery, after all, it had been 13 years since my last one. Luckily, a round of oral steroids seemed to do the trick and I was able to productively participate in my own move last week, with the help of my amazing friends! The move itself started off a little rocky: there were significant issues picking up the U-Haul (note to all of you out there: don't opt for the "self-pickup" at the U-Haul on NW Quimby St in Portland, Oregon). I also was blessed with the pleasure of getting stuck at the train crossing both coming and going. To add to it, my IKEA bed frame did not want to come apart and since it would not fit in the elevator, my poor friends had to finagle it down three flights of steps. In the essence of efficiency, I had ordered pizza and beer earlier in the day to be delivered to the new place at 8pm but the delivery person came early and called me while we were stuck at the train crossing so she had to wait a bit for us to get there, hence we enjoyed warmish pizza and slightly warmer than optimal beer. After that, things went much smoother and the unloading went pretty quick. We all hung out drinking beer and cider in the new place until around 11pm or so before everyone went their own ways. After returning the U-Haul, and taking Cole for a quick walk, I fell fast asleep in my new place. The next day I unpacked, hung pictures, and recycled my moving boxes in less than three hours. It quickly felt like home and I was immediately happy with my decision to relocate and downsize.

Great light in the new place!

Now being car-less and a couple miles from work instead of right across the street, I have become a public transit commuter and with that brings all sorts of new adventures in Portland. This past week of commuting to work has gone fairly well. The morning commute is pretty quick and painless but for some reason, the commute home seems to take longer than it should. One night after work, I missed the streetcar by about 10 seconds which was super frustrating and Thursday night the streetcar had to shut down at one point due to a malfunction in the rails at an interchange section leaving me to hoof it on foot a good deal of the rest of the way home. One morning after I got off the streetcar to work, a saw a car blow through an intersection downtown and narrowly miss getting hit by the Max (light rail) by a mere second or two. That would have been a disaster for so many people! 

Cole's new comfy dog bed

I took Cole to Wallace Park last weekend to check out the dog park and to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood. As expected, Cole played hard with the big dogs. He ran around and around for about an hour or so until he appeared to be tired and ready to go home. Unfortunately, as soon as we left and began walking home, it became clear he was moving slower than usual. Once we got home, I could easily see that he was limping and by the end of the night, he appeared to not want to put much pressure on his left, back leg at all. I got him in for an appointment on Tuesday morning with his vet and the diagnosis was fairly good: just a strained muscle. He was prescribed five days of anti-inflammatories and appears to be doing well now but still needs an x-ray during his next dental cleaning appointment in April to see if anything more serious is going on and/or if we need to adjust his activity level, in case the x-rays show arthritis. It's hard for me to believe Cole is a senior pug, he's always been so active and athletic. I guess time catches up with everyone but part of me hoped he would somehow just live forever.  Today I picked up a nice plush and cushy dog bed for him so if he doesn't want to jump up on the furniture, he can comfortably rest at floor level. I'm also going to look into getting some steps for him to use to get on the bed. The hardwood floors in the new place are a bit slick for him and several times now he's failed to land in bed with his running jump starts, definitely not good for his aging body. Nonetheless, we will adjust to the demands his aging body requires and will find a way to keep the adventures going as long as he is comfortable doing so.

Soon, spring will be here and we're looking forward to all the blooming flowers and photo opportunities they present. Until then, Cole and I are holding up in our beautiful new space with great books, food, music, and wine to pass the time. Be sure to check out my new Oregon travel blog and Etsy shop when you have time, I'll be updating both soon in the coming weeks! 

The Almost-Solo Nature Junkie

Kristin Roosmalen Photography on Etsy

"Thinking "here goes nothing" could be the start of everything."

~ Drew Wagner~