Thursday, September 28, 2006

Belly full of chili

I know it's not chili season (it's still quite warm here), but it looked good and convenient. I have been eating far too many convenience foods lately. We've been a little busy.

This past Sunday, we went to dinner with Julie & Friends to celebrate her birthday. Monday, we went out for drinks with Natalie & Friends to celebrate her birthday. Tuesday, we went to dinner with Amanda & Friends to celebrate her birthday. Natalie wanted to dinner on Wednesday to celebrate her birthday some more, but ended calling it off due to illness. We grabbed a quick dinner with Sunny, Chris and Amanda at Broadway Grill instead. Tonight, we are going over to Angie & Jessie's for dinner. Tomorrow night, we are having a party to celebrate the birthdays of Julie, Natalie, Amanda and Adrianne. Are you tired yet? I sure am.

This weekend, we'll be looking at houses. Very exciting!

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

A week-old crazy squirrel story

I promised Jenn I'd write about this and I always try to keep my promises.

Last Wednesday was my night to stay at home and Get Stuff Done like laundry. Our laundry facilites are in the basement of our apartment building. To get to the basement, it's easiest to go out our back door. I head out to put the first load in while it's still light out. I started to head down the basement steps when I was startled by a little squirrel. I like squirrels and all, but I'm used to them being a little cautious of humans. The little guy wasn't scared of me nor did he try to run away. I stood there for a bit trying to persuede him to leave the steps but all he would do is run down to the basement door like he wanted to go inside. I finally gave up and gingerly walked around him with hopes that he wouldn't jump on me and sink his little teeth into me. There was no jumping - he just sat there as I got within a foot of him. When I walked out of the basement, I was able to shoo him up the steps, but he still showed no fear.

I didn't think about the little guy again until...

The timer went off for me to go get my last load of laundry from the dryer. By this time, it was well after dark. I open my back door and was greeted by a ruckus. I couldn't see what was making all of these funny noises, but I definitely knew it didn't like me being where I was. Finally, after scanning all around our back steps, I spotted the little guy crouching in the corner between our back door and screen door with his back against the wall. Eep! I thought I might have injured him or something, but he looked OK. No matter what I said, he just wouldn't move. This is very strange behavior for a squirrel! Anyway, I had laundry waiting for me so I let him be and retrieved it from the basement. To be safe, I walked around and entered the house from the front door.

And then...

I walked into the kitchen and found the back door ajar. Oh no! I didn't close it completely due to being startled by the ruckus! I thought for sure the squirrel was somewhere in the house. After all, all actions made it seem he was after me. Fortunately, he didn't come into the house and was still sitting in his little corner between the doors. I closed the back door very carefully to make sure I didn't squish him. I called Tony to tell him of the creepy squirrel and he said that strange behavior like that can sometime indicate rabies infection. Eeep! He came home shortly thereafter and the little guy was still in his corner. Tony decided that he was going to make him move just to make sure he was OK. Finally, with the help of a little nudging from a stick, the squirrel left his corner and scurried off. We haven't seen him since but keep an eye out for him everytime we take out the garbage.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Friday, September 22, 2006

I haven't forgotten

I've just been busy lately. And my downtime has been filled with busy-ness.

Happy Birthday to the wonderful Kikaroo! I heart you!

Work has been very busy so I must get back to it. I will try to post sometime this weekend before my crazy-busy week begins next week. Social events every night starting on Sunday - ack!

Monday, September 11, 2006

Haircut

Well, folks, I'm pretty excited. I haven't cut my hair in months in preparation of The Wedding Updo. Now that it's all over with, I am going to get the hairs cut off tonight after work. You see, when my hair gets below my shoulders, it's stringy and flat and BORING. I get bored with my hair pretty quickly which is also why it's always changing color. I'm going to be sticking with the blonde for a bit longer, though.

In other news, I woke up with a headache and it has yet to go away. Lameness.

We went to Utah this past weekend for a lovely family wedding reception. I met all of Nathan's family (tony's stepfather) for the first time. His family isn't nearly as huge as his mom's side. I'll post some pictures to my Flickr account soon.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

My eyes burn from reading the computer

I was talking to my step sister-in-law this weekend in Utah and she was telling me about my step nephew's experience as a sixth-grader at a private school (I have step relatives now that I am married, right? If they are step relatives to Tony they are now my step relatives and vice-versa?). It seems they have done away with the textbooks and are doing everything on computers now. We talked about the pros: up-to-date information, reduction in overall costs, etc; and the con: how hard it is to read a computer screen for a long period of time. I realize that many of us look at a computer screen for a good part of our work day, but we aren't trying to read chapters in a textbook. Maybe it's not like that at all, but i do know that if I get caught up in reading blogs for too long, my eyes start to burn and it gets hard for me to focus.

Speaking of reading blogs, it wasn't until somewhat recently that I realized that people read blogs as entertainment and some writers can actually make a living off of writing blogs. Yes, I realize I was behind the times for quite some time and didn't realize this until one of my favorite people wrote about how she reads people's blogs for fun and linked to a few. There was a post that linked to a blog that has a sidebar with links to many blogs. I started reading a few of these other blogs and recently a couple have gone away. An event or maybe more caused these writers to decide to stop sharing their lives with The Internet and it makes me wonder why. The bloggers started sharing about these life-altering events and then just stopped. These blogs were read by many people and several of these people would decide to post responses to whatever the writers decided to share with The Internet. Unfortunately, strangers sometimes say mean things to writers who decide to write about their lives on The Internet and I think this may have contributed to the end of these blogs that I speak of.

The Internet is a weird creature.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Hello! I am married now! part 2

So where was I? Oh yes - Julie & I arrived at The Smith Tower at around 6:45 and saw that a few guests were still arriving. We head up in the elevator with my dad, Betsy, Kik & Amy. They drop me off on the floor below to wait for everyone to get seated. When I stepped off the elevator, I ran into Photographer Chris and he took me into the bathroom for a quick photo session before he headed upstairs. Jenn, Manda and Dad came back downstairs and we continued to wait for about 20 more minutes for the final guests to arrive and all to be seated. Finally, things were ready to start. The ceremony was sweet and I cried. Afterwards, the family went downstairs for pictures while our guests stared with the drinking and the eating.

The reception was a fun party and the night flew by. Everything ended around 11:30. Sol & Lauren gave us a ride home. Once we got there, we discovered that neither of us had our keys. Oops! Sol gave Tony a ride to where Amanda was to pick up his keys while I hung out with Jessica in her apartment.

Pictures!

Sol's pictures
Murray's pictures
Natalie's pictures
Amy's pictures
Betsy's pictures

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Hello! I am married now!

Why did I wake up before 8 AM the day after my wedding? I did this yesterday, too!

This week has been fantastic. Jenn, Cameron, Mom & Paul arrived last weekend/beginning of the week. We got to spend some quality time with them and celebrate Mom's birthday with her. Dad & Carolyn arrived on Wednesday and they kept busy for the rest of the week by picking up the rest of our out-of-town guests up at the airport.

We both took Friday off from work. During the day, Mom, Jenn & I went and got our nails done by the fabulous e. Marie. My nails still look great! Friday night, we had all of the family and a few close friends over to our house for dinner & socializing. Thank goodness for family-sized frozen lasagna! We still have a ton left over. Everyone had a good time.

Saturday, my eyes popped open shortly before 7:30 AM. I was just too excited to sleep. I got out of bed and wrote the ceremony for our wedding. Yes, we hadn't really had much written before the day of! After writing it out, I took a long shower and then got Tony out of bed so we could go over it before our officiant came over (Murray). He arrived shortly after 10 and we hung out for a bit before Jenn & Cameron came over. Elna arrived after 11 to start doing our hair. Natalie, Brenda & Stephanie came over to put together the centerpieces and bouquets. We bought the flowers the day before from the farmers at Pike Place Market. It was fabulous - we did our flowers for $80! - 7 centerpieces, 2 bouquets, 5 boutonnieres and flowers for the cake (all Dahlias) and it looked gorgeous! We bought our vases from Ikea and Carolyn made lovely bows out of ribbon to go around all of the vases. We spent the day getting ready with a quick run to the Chinese Room for a rehearsal and to drop off the centerpieces, cake and liquor. Ton

Jenn, Julie & Natalie spent the rest of the day with me helping me get ready. Around 6:30, the towncar came to pick me and Julie up to head to the wedding (everyone else went in their own cars).