This is my last day. Yes it is.

I am getting the passport for when we go to Canada. I also hope to get off this continent one of these days. Cereal. The acquiring of the passport has been a very large pain in my ass. I forgot my birth certificate on Tuesday, so I couldn't do it during lunch on that day. Wednesday, I met up with Chris for lunch. Today, I was given the incorrect directions to one place. When I went to the courthouse later, they told me they only take checks even though the application states that they accept major credit cards. I don't typically carry around my checkbook. I'm not going to deal with it tomorrow since tomorrow is going to be about fun.

Today has been very bleh. I've had a headache all day long. I took Screech to the vet this morning to get his teeth cleaned and have exams & stuff. He's healthy but does have a bad case of gingivitis. I get to give him antibiotics. Yay. But, it's good to know that he doesn't have problems with his thyroid. When I first moved here, he weighed in at 10.5 lbs. He's gained two pounds since I started free-feeding him.

Life at my house has been so much better since I started free-feeding him. It's great. I can't believe I withheld for this long!

Thank you to J&D for the REI gift certificate! I'm going this weekend! Thank you Dad & Carolyn for the check! I'm going shopping tomorrow! I want a new dress for the party.

If anyone wants to reach me tomorrow, call my cell phone.

Saturday, I'm going to Stine's for a massage. From 6 to 7:30pm, I'm gonna be flying around over the city in a little plane. I have a friend that recently got his pilot's license. Whee! I hope we also go to brunch in the morning.

Stupid headache. We have plans to go to Ira's tonight for dinner. I hate feeling crappy.

This weekend, I only got to do about half of what I wanted to do, but that's OK. Life is fun.

Hanging out with Teresa = check
Snowboarding = check
Going out saturday night = check
Q.T. with my favorite boy = check
Made brunch on Sunday = check
Bookclub = check
Called Mom = check
A load of laundry = check
Made two delicious quiches = check

The things I did not get to do = two loads of laundry, motorcycle ride through the arboretum with Tony, trip to Ikea, passport photos. I took care of the photos during lunch today and will drop off the application during lunch tomorrow. I'm having dinner at Teresa's tonight - I'm taking one of the quiches.

I need to put "Doing Taxes" at the top of my priority list. I would have done them ages ago, but I've been procrastinating because I have to deal with the income from contracting and unemployment. I sure do hope I do not have to pay a lot. Bleh.

I get to be in my 20's for 3.5 more days.

I was meant to help Sandi paint her old place on Monday night, but she never called. So, I helped her on Tuesday. Last night, I went over to Tony's and he dyed my hair for me. Wednesday nights are TV night - Chris and Amanda were also over. I hate the day after I dye the black part in my hair because it just looks funny when I have blonde roots on the other half. I can see people notice it. I will fix it tonight when I dye the red.

I'm meant to hang out with Teresa tomorrow night, go snowboarding on Saturday and do the other stuff on Sunday like finally have book club. This is the last weekend of snowboarding before Crystal is closed. This winter flew by so quickly. BUT, it's not the end of snowboarding this season. We are taking another trip back up to Whistler in May. It is going to be super, super, super cheap. Yeah, the snow isn't going to be so great, but we'll still have tons of fun.

I turn 30 in 8 days. Ack. No, not really. I'm not ack. 30 just sounds so grown up and i surely don't feel all grown up.

Work has been busy. Social life has been busy. This means I do not post as often as I would like. I should post some pictures soon. The weekend before last, we went up to Crystal Mountain for snowboarding. Tony & Chris took me up way high and the wind was crazy. It was blowing me around like a rag doll. I did get some great pictures of Rainier. I should post those soon.

What I did last week:

Wednesday: went out to the club and shook the booty.
Thursday: went to a friend's house for a dinner party.
Friday: left for Long Beach for the weekend. We had so much fun. Natalie's parents have a cabin that we stayed in. On Saturday, we went to the store to pick up food and then we went to lunch. After lunch, we played frisbee. It was fun! That night, we made dinner and then went out on the beach to have a bonfire and play in the waves. I didn't play in the waves, but the boys did. They were being very silly.
We left Sunday morning since we all had places to be. Natalie and I had originally planned to go to the VegFest, but we got back into town too late. As previously planned, we went over to Julie's for a bbq for awhile.

News flash: I decided to do a test this weekend. I put out a bunch of food for Screech and Persephone instead of getting a kitty sitter. My fear was that Screech was going to eat himself to death. Believe it or not, when I got home, there was food still left. Screech also had a Very Big Belly. My cat got fat in a weekend. Crazy. The great thing is is now I know I can go away for the weekend and the kitties will be OK. I have also decided to start free-feeding them again because it makes us all happier. When I got home from work today, I was able to prepare and EAT my dinner without Screech bothering me once. It was so nice. He's actually acting like a normal kitty. Yeah, he may be fat for the rest of his life and die sooner than later, but at least it will be a happy life.

Jenn & Duncan - you should read this when you have some time. I found her blog about a month ago. If you have time, read more of her entries.

Scrubbing the bathtub is not easy to do after working out. Damn that was tiring.

Before I forget, here are my pictures from the trip this weekend. I also recommend checking out Chris' pictures.

When I came home from work last night, there was a message from cousin Tom. He brought the kids out to Stevens Pass for spring break. I'm going to try and meet up with them tomorrow evening for dinner.

I have collard greens and i'm not really sure what to do with them. I just don't want greens like you get in the south and i can't find a recipe for anything different online. harumph.

I was busy busy last week. I hung out with Teresa Tuesday night, hung out with Tony Wednesday night and laundry/packed Thursday night. We left for Mt. Baker right after work on Friday. It was a fu-un trip. The snow was crappy on Saturday due to the lack of cold and precipitation and many of us got sunburn on our faces. Saturday night, it snowed a couple of inches but it made a big difference when we went snowboarding on Sunday.

Stay tuned for pictures and videos from the trip.

My back is achy. Bleh. I need a massage, but Christine is very, very busy right now. Harumph.

This week, I will be busy reading _The Brothers K_ for bookclub. We have a tentative meeting this Sunday. I'll also be going to a birthday party on Saturday.

Girl's night eating crack nachos & drinking margaritas = Fun
Making spinach & mushroom omelet with a side of potatoes = Yum
Seeing Stine & Jose' act in a play with Sandi & Jim = Fun
Going out to the club and hanging out with a bunch of cool people = Fun
Having boyfriend make you breakfast = Yum
Going to the gym and doing lots of ab exercises = Ouch
Making apple-chard quiche for some peeps = Yum & Fun
Driving eastbound to work when it is very sunny which causes people to get into accidents and makes my morning commute almost an hour = Unfun
Eating the salad I brought from home for lunch = Yum

Does anybody still read this thing?

We went snowboarding this last Saturday and I had a fantastic day. I am getting so much better. Tony & Chris even took me out on a black run. It was steep and I had to snowplow down the very steep parts, but I still made it. The rest of last weekend was spent relaxing because that is what weekends are for in my book.

This weekend, there will be no snowboarding. My bank account is not allowing it since it is still recovering from the Whistler trip. But, I do have plans to go out with Natalie & Aime tonight for some quality girl time and am going to Stine's play tomorrow night with Sandi and maybe Jim.

In other news, I have defeated the temptation of the jelly doughnut and signed up for a gym membership at Bally's yesterday. I am very excited! The gym is very big and it was not packed which makes me happy. I am determined to comfortably fit into my pants again! Plus, I really enjoyed being in shape last year. I had so much more energy and strength which will really help with snowboarding.

I have found that my family is surprised that I snowboard and love it. This is perplexing to me. Do you really perceive me as being lazy and not liking physical activity?

My tummy has been doing the hurty thing after I eat dinner the past couple of nights. Last night, my belly got so big - I looked about 5 to 6 months pregnant. Tony fed me tonic water and made it all better. It doesn't hurt during the day - just after dinner. I can't figure it out.

Another annoying thing - I started feeding the kitties different food and now their poop is super stinky. I don't think I'll get that food again. Stinky poo.

I have been up to much of nothing. I cooked beets for the first time ever and found out that not all beets are red. I made a beet salad and it was tasty. Work is fine; busy right now processing new apps. Went to Stine's last night and worked on her computer some more and made it happy. She lent me Buffy - Season 5 so I went to Tony's and we got our fix. Tonight, I cook up some rice and spinach stuff before going over to T's to watch Angel and South Park.

It's kinda nice to look forward to weekends again.

Before I forget once again, here is the link for video cd software for those of you who do not have a DVD player or your player doesn’t play video cd’s. Now you can finally watch my X-mas movie!

We went to Crystal yesterday for the snowboarding. All of us had a really good day. Sunny & I practiced our new skills we learned at Whistler and neither of us broke!

My birthday is in 6 weeks. If you wanted to get me something for the big 3-0 and still do not have an idea, I can tell you what I want. Snowboarding gear. More specifically – REI gift certificates. Since my birthday is towards the end of the season, I should be able to get all my stuff on sale.

Mmm. Hungry. Must go fix some food.

This picture makes me laugh so much. This is one of the pictures taken on Chris' camera at Whistler. Since Tony & I weren't there at the time and Ira took the picture, Tony photoshopped us in. Too silly. Here are the rest of the pictures Chris took during the Whistler trip.

This week was filled with the studying. It paid off because I passed my exams. I will soon be a licensed life & disability insurance agent. Weird. Anyway, the job is going well. It's nothing too exciting. I mean, come on. It's insurance.

I have enjoyed my Saturday except for not being able to get tickets to see the Pixies this morning. Damn them for playing in the small venues! After we tried to get tickets for over an hour, we gave up and went to The Globe for some brunch. It took too long and the dude forgot to write my order down and then he tried to charge me for it again when I went to go ask for my food. Whatever. At least they made it up with putting extra gravy on my biscuts.

After brunch, I came home and called the Houston family. I was thinking of enjoying the clear day out, but instead took a lovely 2-hour nap with the kitties. I just got done dying the hairs the super red - I hope it turned out since I had some visible roots. Now I must go get some cleaning done.

Snowboarding tomorrow! Yeah!

I just got off the phone with the family in Houston. It was so good to talk to dad after that scare. It's also good to hear that his heart is healthy. Now we've just got to get that stress under control!

After all that happened yesterday, I have decided to get a cell phone. Yep, yep.

Sunday and Monday sure were doozies. I did enjoy having a 3-day weekend, but MAN.

Saturday, Tony, Chris, Solomon an I ate brunch at Cafe Flora. It was my first time there. Tony & I were pondering going to see Big Fish, but decided to wait a bit more. I've only heard really good things about it and both of us are Tim Burton fans. Anyway, we laid around for most of the day and went out for an early sushi dinner. I ate a little bite of fish! Seriously! And when I say little, I mean little. I made Tony feed it to me while I squeezed my eyes shut. I was too nervous to really notice how it tasted. I am such a wimp.

That night, we met everyone out at the club and had a very good time. Happy belated Valentine's Day!

Sunday, we went out to brunch with Chris, Solomon, Julie and Will at El Greco. They have this wonderful omlete with avocado. Yum! After brunch, I took off and did a little bit of shopping at Target and then laundry all day. Sunday night, went back over to Tony's to hang out with him and Brook.

On Monday, we wanted to go snowboarding, but the conditions sucked. It's been to warm and sunny here lately. So, I got another day of sleeping in :-) Tony and I went out to lunch with Chris at our favorite Vietnamese place. The food was so spicy that Tony cried. Another big yum! I pretty much studied for the rest of the day before heading home and learning that dad was in the hospital. No more studying for me that night. I was tootoo worried.

I just had to lock Screech in the bedroom because he was trying to eat my yam. Freak. I should go let him out before the neighbors complain.

I was planning on doing a catch-up post, but now I'm in no mood. Too worried :-(

For your reading pleasure, I will be writing in great detail about my Whistler trip. I’m feeling verbose today.

Thursday, 2/5/04 – It was my last day of insurance class (thank maude) and we got out a little late. I raced home in bumper-to-bumper traffic and did all those last minute things one must do before going out of town for the weekend. I tool on over to Tony’s and we load up the car and head to Chris’ house. Ira beat us there. We loaded up Chris’ car and hit the road.

We stop in Bellingham for some tasty Thai food. Mmm…Thai food. Shortly thereafter, we crossed the border with barely a question. The drive was uneventful until our ascent on the mountain. It was snowing pretty steadily and the plow trucks were still trying to tackle it. Thank maude Chris has 4-wheel drive. We slowly made it up the mountain with no major catastrophes. By this time, it was about 1am. We hung out for a little while to unwind before going to bed.

Friday, 2/6/04 – We arose early to be at the customer service place to buy our express passes at 8:30am. I found out that lessons were only $8 more, so I bought one. Sunny, Scott and I took an all-day lesson together and learned how to connect our turns without falling down every time. Great progress was made and we had tons of fun as always. After the lesson, we head back to the condo to meet up with everyone.

After everyone got cleaned up, we headed over to Gray and Will’s condo where we feasted on pasta and stuff with the whole SeaTown gang (there was a total of 16 in our group). Julie, Jeremiah, Tony and I headed back early cause we were tired. We mellowed for the rest of the night before going to bed.

Saturday, 2/7/04 – Another early morning! Scott, Sunny and I left after all the other kids since we weren’t planning on meeting up with Gray and Lorian until 9. We got down to the Village a little late, but so did Lorian & Douglas. We waited for Gray, but he never showed up that morning. Off to the slopes we went to practice our new skills. Lorian hadn’t been skiing since last season, and her boots were making her feet fall asleep. And then Sunny ragdolled something fierce and broke herself for the rest of the day. We ate lunch and Scott & I did a few more runs before meeting Sunny, Lorian and Douglas down in the village. After a short stop into Lush for smelly stuff, we had a quick beer at the pub before heading back to the condo.

All the other kids went out for sushi while Tony & I stayed home due to our tight budget. We hung out for a while until they called us to tell us where to meet them. We did a little club hopping in the Whistler Village and had too much fun. Chris, Tony and I headed back to the condo around 1:30am, but not before stopping for some of the best veggie dogs ever. Yum!

Sunday, 2/8/04 – We got to sleep in – no snowboarding today. Plus, everyone was pretty hung over from the previous night’s festivities. Everyone packed up except those in Chris’ car and we ate brunch in the Village. After the other kids left town, we hung out and took our time leaving. No one was ready for the weekend to end. On our drive home, we stopped several times to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of the place. We left reluctantly, but we’ll be back next season.

The unfun stuff: We got stopped crossing the border and the car was searched.

If you made it through all that, kudos to you! Here are the pictures I took.

Hi there. We got back last night from Whistler. It was so much fun. I'll give the details later. I've been pretty beat since getting back. I promise to find the time for stories very soon.

Just for Jenn & Duncan: madmadmadmadmad!

Funfun snowboarding on Sunday. I was super tired when I got home an actually got to bed at 10pm. I had to be up earlier than usual this morning since I started my insurance class at 7:45am. I was late. The drive took longer than expected. I learned lots about life insurance today. Oh boy. It was fun. Really. No, not really. But at least the instructor is entertaining.

This week is going to be busy. Whistler this weekend! Yay! It is going to be so much fun. There is going to be 8 of us just in our condo alone. Craziness. Tomorrow night, my kitty sitter is coming over (Natalie) around 7pm so I can show her the ropes. Then, Tony and I are going to Trader Joe's to get food to take with us this weekend. Then, I must go to Stine's to try and get her modem to work. After I upgraded her to 2k on Saturday night, I found that her modem driver doesn't work with the OS. And, the driver was not on the modem installation disk. Must get it from the internet and burn it to disk before going over there tomorrow night. Wednesday, I get to do laundry and packing. We are leaving shortly after work on Thursday and getting back late on Sunday.

That is what my week looks like so far. I am very excited about the weekend trip. It's gonna be mad amounts of fun ;-)

I'm not too good with getting to bed early.
It never did snow this week.
Work has been going well. I'm still not as busy as I would like to be, but that will hopefully change soon. I have been told that they are happy with me so far.
Next week, I will be in insurance class Monday through Thursday and then off to Whistler. Wheee!

I went out to dinner with Teresa tonight. We went to this place on 45th called Kabul. It's Afgan cuisine - unlike anything I have had before. I had this really tasty eggplant. Yumyum.

This weekend will be pretty busy. Tomorrow night, we are going to a going-away party. Saturday - brunch, oil change, goodwill to drop off stuff, hang out with Stine and fix her computer/maybe get a massage. Sunday is snowboarding. Sweet.

Bad me not updating yet this week. I must go to bed now. Will post tomorrow night.

I have mad amounts of food in my kitchen now. Since I'm working once again, I should be able to get back on a schedule and eat regularly again. I made vegetable stew today to take to work with me. Mmmmm...stew.

This weekend was on the mellow side. Friday night, Tony and I hung out at his place watching the evil TV. He has a tentative phone interview tomorrow and wanted to study on Saturday, so I made a trip to Target where I spent too much money that I don't have yet. But it was all on stuff I needed. I came back home and dyed my hair. I think people at work are going to be shocked because I got the impression that they think I'm a natural red head. That night, I went over to Tony's and Chris & Amanda came over. We watched Underworld. We all thought it was entertaining for a vampire/werewolf movie which was surprising since it didn't do so well in the theaters.

Now I can't decide if I'm tired. Am I tired? I shall go read and try to go to sleep. I didn't sleep so well this weekend. My body has already adjusted to getting up at 7am even when I go to bed at 2am. Like last night. I hate to think that I can't sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays. I love the sleeping in.

It is meant to snow next week. Yay!

Work has been picking up. Debbie, operations manager (and also my boss), has been out of town the past couple of days. I've gotten to use her computer and have actually been working. There are lots of processes we do when it comes to insurance coverage & agent credentialling. Is that even a word? Anyway, I've been learning all of the procedures and stuff that I will be doing. It seems easy so far - it just takes good organizational skills. I have mad organizational skills.

The commute across the bridge is weird. It doesn't take me as long in the mornings, but I think that's normal. But, the time it takes me has varied by 10 minutes which annoys me a little bit. My commute home definitely takes longer. It took me an hour yesterday! I'm really not complaining, but I do think I'm going to look into the bus and also carpooling. I really don't like to drive that much.

Oh yeah. If you watched/listened/read the State of the Union on Tuesday, Bush mentioned Association Health Plans:
"On the critical issue of health care, our goal is to ensure that Americans can choose and afford private health care coverage that best fits their individual needs. To make insurance more affordable, Congress must act to address rapidly rising health care costs. Small businesses should be able to band together and negotiate for lower insurance rates so they can cover more workers with health insurance. I urge you to pass Association Health Plans."

If it does get passed, it means the company I work for could expand nationally. Now that's some growth!

I should try and get to bed now. I'm looking forward to sleeping in this weekend :-)

p.s.- AHP Services = Association Health Plan Services

First day of work = boring
I don't have access to a computer yet. There is not much for me to do w/o a computer. We hopes to have one soon.
I filled out new employee paperwork.
I read boring insurance stuff while fighting off the dozing.
I filed a little bit.
I made some nametags.
I watched Lynn, the woman I am replacing, do some stuff.
And that was my day.
Lynn informed me that it will be kinda boring for the first few weeks...especially before i get my insurance license. The class is the first week of February.

I kinda expected it to be boring at first. Most jobs are.

I got home from work shortly after 6. I changed clothes and went over to Sandi's to pick up my portion of our bi-weekly shipment of organic produce. I came back home, started some laundry, cleaned the leafy greens, cooked up some food, talked to Jenn, finished some laundry, cooked up food for lunch tomorrow, read some emails, painted my nails and chatted with Tony. I think it's time I go to bed now.

I can say with confidence that the interview today went well. I've been home for 30 minutes and have already received a call offereing me the position. I start tomorrow at AHP Services, LLC. I "interviewed" with the whole team today - 8 people to be exact. It was pretty much them seeing if they like me and it appears that they do. They seem like a good group of people that enjoy working together and like to laugh a lot. Yeah, I think I can get along in that environment. At first, I'll be doing general administrative work and will probably take over the Excel reporting part for the team. Also, the company is growing and they are having to fill the position because they are promoting the person who is currently dong the job. It seems that there is definite growth potential there which is one of the reasons why I accepted the job. The pay isn't what I was looking for, but it is enough for me to live off of. Saving up to buy a house will just take longer and I'm OK with that.

The Atkins diet causes gout?

I never heard from Paula after Thursday which means the PM did not contact her to schedule the final interview. Maybe I just not meant to work at Microsoft.

We watched Freaky Friday and Old School last night. Freaky Friday was funnier than I expected and I can't say I liked Old School. Nope. Not at all. After talking to Tony & Amanda about comedies, I've decided that I need to watch Zoolander.

Today, Tony & I went to Half Priced Books so he could sell a bunch of old computer books he no longer needs. I think he took in over 10 books and got $6.25. That's it. I can't imagine that outdated computer books sell well, so it makes sense. While there, I finally picked up The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. I've been wanting this book since seeing Bowling For Columbine but could never find it used. When I tried finding it at the library, there were 50+ people with a hold on the book! I'm pretty happy to have gotten it new for $8.

After the bookstore, we walked down to the revamped library on Capitol Hill. It looks much bigger on the outside than it actually is on the inside. They did have lots of fancy computers with flat panel monitors and everything. Unfortunately, they didn't have the book Tony was looking for.

To nap or not to nap - that is the question.

The Program Manager has yet to get back to Paula to confirm an interview. It was meant to be today or tomorrow. He's going back to Cincinnati next week. Maybe he decided not to do the final interview. I wish they would just tell Paula something. I can only hope that he will get back to her tonight/tomorrow morning to confirm the tentative interview for tomorrow afternoon.

My exciting life today: I helped Tony clean & organize his huge closet. It's really much more than a closet. It's a second room. I really didn't do much of the organizing - it was all him. But I helped with the cleaning because that's what I'm good at. Yesterday afternoon, I didn't get to cleaning my bedroom because the organizing of my storage unit took all of my energy. I finally put together those shelved that I bought when I first moved here. Progress!

Last night, we went to Julie's to watch Angel. We mostly go to make her happy. There gets to be so many people there and she doesn't have enough places to sit. Plus, her house smelled like they rarely clean the litterboxes. 5 humans & 6 cats live there. Anyhoo, Angel was funny last night.

Moose story of the day.

Ack. OK, I think the interviews went well. They weren't as tedious as the last ones I had at Microsoft for the Recruiting Coordinator position. I wish I knew if they liked my answers. I can never tell. I hope the people I interviewed with today give good feedback to the program manager. I should be meeting with him later this week. Ack. Knot in my stomach. I want this job.

I have my second interview at AHP on Monday with the sales team. This job sounds good to me also, but it still isn't my ideal. I think I could advance faster in my career if I were to work at Microsoft. The AHP job would be comfortable and nice and friendly and happy. The MS job would be intense and exciting and challenging. And that's why both would work for me.

So my view is, it will be easy for me to impress the AHP sales people on Monday. It will take more work for me to impress the PM at Microsoft. I am going to study up on DRM and stuff before my final interview with him. I felt like I talked to fast and didn't speak clearly at the interviews today. I was nervous. Blah.

I finally cleaned my car yesterday. It was very dirty from the snow last week and also taking it up to the mountains for snowboarding. I cleared out crap from the trunk and vacuumed the inside. It makes me happy to have a clean car. Today I do laundry and straighten up the messy corner in my bedroom. Now that I do not have to wait by the phone, I am going to start working on organizing my storage unit. Fun stuff.

OK...using new service now. Comments are back (obviously).

It appears that the person who was offering the comments feature stopped. I will look for another and get that worked out today.

I was doing so good with the thinking of doing updates and then I got busy and didn't spend much time at home in the past couple few days.

So let's see...Friday night, our friends Ira, Joel and Johnny had a martini party. We had to get all dressed up and everything. Johnny is a bartender and is getting ready to move to Miami. He's never lived anywhere other than the PNW. It will be such a culture shock for him! The party was great fun and I got to chat it up with people I had only briefly met before.

Saturday was spent recovering from the night before and going grocery shopping.

Sunday, of course, was snowboarding day. Here are the pictures. The visibility was really bad that day, so Tony took my camera and got some pictures of the peaks of the mountains above the cloud cover. I'm still not skilled enough to go up that high. I am getting better - we've decided that Stevens is my mountain. I'll prolly skip going with them when they go to Crystal until next season.

I must be getting better because I am in a lot less pain by the end of the day and the next day. I did get a horrendous bruise on my butt, though. Fortunately, no one can see it :-)

Yesterday, I had a non-Microsoft interview. It was for an admin position at a small health insurance company. The job sounds kinda boring, but the people were really nice and all seemed to really enjoy working there. I met with Debbie, the Office Manager, and she seemed to really like me. The interview was pretty casual - I should know in the next couple of days if they want to bring me in for a second interview. The pay isn't as much as I would like, but they are having to fill the position because the person currently in it is being promoted after 6 months. It is a direct hire position which means great benefits :-)

When I got home from the interview yesterday, I had a message on my machine from Paula. She's still trying to cement a time for my second interview for the Microsoft job. It could be this afternoon, but I still haven't heard from her yet. I just gave her a call and left a voicemail. I guess that means I'm going to stick around here today and wait for the phone to ring. I have some cleaning I need to do, but it seems that Persephone is permanently attached to my lap.

The snow didn't finish melting until last night. Boy was that slush a mess to walk in! The weather is warmer (40's) and it hasn't been raining too much.

I still don't have a confirmed interview date/time for that job. The people are at a conference. lalalala

So yeah. Not much going on. Screech is still a freak and Persephone is still a big sweetie. I've gained over 5 lbs since moving to Seattle. What's up with that?

Taking a walk in the snow was much fun! I was very surprised to see so many people out enjoying the weather. There is lots of sledding going on. I never realized how much dogs love snow. It was too cute. Here are the pictures I took. I also took a couple of movies. The snow stopped about 12:30pm but some light snow has started again. Tony says it's supposed to all melt tonight. Oh well.

SNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOW!!!!!!

Yes, dear readers, it is actively snowing and sticking here in Seattle. No one has to go to work today unless they can walk or have a 4-wheel drive. I plan on going out and taking pictures after I finish my coffee.

My flight back to Seattle on the 1st was fine. It had snowed in Seattle earlier in the day and the ground was covered. I could actually see it up in the plane at night! Unfortunately, it did cause quite the delay in getting my luggage.

As I'm sure you could guess, I've been hanging out with Tony since my return. We went snowboarding on Sunday at Crystal Mountain. It was bloody cold! I didn't get too many pictures because my fingers would freeze off every time I removed my hand from my glove. Check out the pictures and movie I did take. You should also look at the pictures Chris took. It has also been incredibly cold in the city. I think we had days where we were the coldest city in the continental U.S. It is supposed to warm up tomorrow after snowing all day today.

I have a big bruise on my butt from Sunday. I was using Julie's old board for the first time and it is just so different than the rental boards I am used to. I fell a lot and that was not fun. I was getting more used to it by the end of the day, but I totally felt like I took a step back. I still have so much to learn!

I had a tentative interview this morning for the job I had the phone interview for before the holidays. It wasn't confirmed, but it seems like that was a good thing with it snowing today. It would have been cancelled anyway! Now I get to wait to see when the interview will be. *twiddles thumbs*

Expect snow pictures later today!

Wow this weekend flew by. Friday night, we stayed in and watched movies with Amanda. Saturday, we went out to brunch with Chris. Sunday, we woke up early to go snowboarding. I am getting so much better! We went to Stevens Pass this weekend and I got to go up on a higher slope. At first it was daunting, but I'm really getting the hang of things. I did get hurt a couple of times getting off the lift, but just bruises. They will heal. It's all good. Getting off the lift is so hard! Tony says I am doing better than both he and Julie on their third day out. I don't fall that much, but I'm still pretty cautious. Strangely enough, my legs aren't sore like I expected. Granted, I am sore, but that's due to falling.

I lovelovelove snowboarding!

3 days until X-mas!

I had a phone interview this morning at 9:00am. It lasted 20 minutes. But it's OK! So yeah. This job is perfect for me. First immediate connection: it's for the Windows Media Player Digital Rights team. I worked intensively with WMP DRM during my time at Intertainer. The program manager knows my former bosses. He was one of our main contacts at Microsoft when we would find bugs in WMP with our product. So yeah. It helped lots. The interview was very easy. He mainly told me about what the team does and the role the coordinator plays in it all. Asked me only a few questions which is a-okay. I will have the rest of my interviews with other team members after the holidays.

Last night, I went over to Tony's and he was going to help me get ready for this interview. I was so not in the mood and couldn't get motivated. Now I don't feel so bad since I really didn't need to prepare that much for this phone interview. Now I have two weeks to prepare for my live interviews. I think I am going to be the master interviewee at the end of all of this.

.................................................................................................
Waiting for the phone to ring for my phone interview.
Wait.Wait.Wait.Wait.Wait.Wait.Wait.Wait.Wait.Wait.

My apologies for the previous short post. I was headed to Tony's to catch the season finale of "King of the Jungle". Snowboarding on Sunday was funfun (of course) and I did much better this time. Granted, the bunny slope at Crystal is MUCH easier than the one at Steven's, but it allowed me to practice balancing, stopping, turning and stuff. I didn't fall down as hard this time and did not end the day with a sore butt/ankle/wrist. After getting back from the mountain, a few people came over and ate chili I made the night before. Mmmm...chili.

This week has been pretty uneventful so far. Watched Margaret Cho's movies "Notorious C.H.O." and "I'm the One I Want". She is very entertaining. Job postings have been minimal...I am hoping that will change with the new year. The phone interview I was meant to have tomorrow got pushed back to Friday. More time to prepare, I suppose.

I can't believe I am going to be in Florida next week. Crazy. I'm trying to put together a little gifty for everyone...we'll see if I can pull it together in a week or so.

OK...stuff to do before going over to Tony's tonight. Amanda wants to make us dinner :-)

Crystal Mountain 12/14/03

The thing with Parker went well, but they don't have any placements right now. Bah. Paula called me on Wednesday to set up another interview - this time it will be a phone interview first. It's next Thursday. I will prepare even more for this one.

Argh! All this stress has caused my shingles to reappear. Ow! Ow!

Tuesday night, I went to dinner with Teresa at Hattie's Hat. That place has some yummy food! Good talks all around.

Wednesday night, Amanda, Tony and I went to a musical put on by Seattle Central Community College. Amanda went to school there for a little bit and knew most of the people in the cast. It was so long and wasn't very good IMO. Reminded me of plays from high school. Runaways I think it was called. It was written in the 70's. After the play, we went to the club for a little bit.

Thursday, Tony & I went to Goodwill. He ended up getting several coffee mugs and some other kitchen stuff. Thrifting is fun!

Tonight is birthday party night. First, we'll be going to Teresa's celebrations early in the evening. She is doing a bar-hopping thing in Ballard with a bunch of her work friends. Since neither Tony nor I can afford that right now, we will only be able to make an appearance for a short period of time. Later tonight is Stine's b-day party down at Open Circle. It will be a bunch of theater people which always makes things interesting.

We are going snowboarding again this Sunday! Yay! I am so excited!

Saturday was a very lazy day and it was lovely. I finished a book I had been re-reading and that's about it. We went out to the club that night since I had a little extra money after getting the unemployment check. Did some socializing and stuff.

I made these yummy cheese stuffed mushrooms on Friday night from a cookbook Sandi gave me for taking care of her pets. There is also a recipe for Stilton & Celery soup that I will have to make for Teresa. She fell in love with it on the cruise; I hope this recipe is just as good.

I had brunch with Sandi & Christine on Sunday before going to this little festival thing where Sandi was performing in the choir that she is in. It was a little thing at the Phinney Ridge Community Center where they were selling overpriced arts & crafts stuff. Their performance was quite enjoyable and it made me think that it would be something both Mom & Dad would enjoy. Yes, I'm talking to you! You know you like to sing! Dad should wait until he's retired, though. You are too busy now to get involved in another activity. Mom, I think it would be a great activity for you and help you find the joy in singing that I know is inside of you. A community choir isn't a whole lot of pressure. Really!

The job thing: I got a call from Paula this afternoon regarding a few more positions that she will be submitting my resume to. She heard back about the Recruiting Coordinator position and the same thing happened - they chose someone who had previous Microsoft experience. They also do not give her feedback on how I interviewed even though she asks. They say fine, but we decided to go with someone who has MS experience. These other positions that she told me today sound much more interesting, so more finger-crossing that they will want to interview with me.

I finally got a call from Parker Staffing (the agency I worked with when I lived here before) after sending them my resume weeks ago. I have an interview/testing scheduled with them on Wednesday. They will be the 4th staffing agency. Why do I get this feeling that I am going to end up signing up with all of them?

All I want for Christmas is a job.

I went over to Tony's last night so he could help me prepare for my interview better. He was such a big help in giving me feedback to the questions that Jenn gave me to prepare myself. He got a call this morning seeing if he was available for an interview at Microsoft at 1:00pm today. Uncanny, no? So off we went to our interviews.

Mine took about an hour and I interviewed with 2 different people. It was for a Recruiting Coordinator position. They asked me kooky questions like, "Describe how you would make your favorite sandwich" and crap like that. Both were really hard to read so I'm not sure how I did (if they liked my answers or not.) The job didn't sound too exciting to me.

Tony didn't do so well in his interview. He was told that it was just going to be an informational interview and not a technical interview, but it was totally a tech interview that he was not prepared for. My boy has a hard time with interviews and his brain freezes up because he is so nervous. If you have any suggestions on how to help someone gain confidence while interviewing and to not be so nervous, please let me know. I have no idea how to help him with this. Now he's being hard on himself because he failed the interview when he knew the answers to the questions but just couldn't make his brain work. He did find out that he wouldn't have really liked the job anyway, but still.

So that was our interviewing adventures for the day. Staying in tonight and watching the telly.

I waited until 3:30pm on Wednesday before calling Paula back - I got her voicemail. Left her a message but never heard back from her that day. I did, however, hear from her this morning. I have an interview scheduled for 1:00pm on Friday! She didn't have much of a job description, so I'm not sure what team it is for or anything. I suppose I'll find that out tomorrow.

A phone call got me out of bed this morning. It was from the person I was waiting to hear from (Paula at CoreStaff) but wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. She informed me that she heard from another manager that is interested in interviewing me for another coordinator position. I asked about the previous one - she said he found someone that had worked at Microsoft as a coordinator previously, so he went with that candidate. That's understandable. So now I wait for another call to see when my next interview will be. It sounded like this hiring manager needs someone asap, so hopefully the process shouldn't be long.

*shimmyshimmyshakeshakeshake*
I got an unemployment check in the mail today!

Had a busy 4-day weekend. On Wednesday night, we went to the club for a little while. Thursday, I was up early again to go take care of Sandi's animals. Went home, made purple mashed potatoes and went over to Tony's to pick him up to go to Ira's. We went to Ira's for a little bit before having to leave to go pick up Amanda and go feed Sandi's herd again. Got back to Ira's shortly before the feast. There were between 10 and 20 people there throughout the night. The marshmallows on the yams caught on fire when baking in the oven when no one was paying attention. Catastrophe was avoided and the yams were still edible. Lots of yummy vegetarian food. Unfortunately, I felt quite sick later that night.

On Friday, I was still feeling pretty ill so I didn't do much. Tony took care of me and I felt better by the night.

Saturday was an early morning. I had to get up at 6:30am so I could feed Sandi's herd before meeting everyone at 7:00am for breakfast before heading out at 7:30am. We went to Steven's Pass this weekend. Go check out the pictures here. We got to the mountain around 9:30am, so I missed the 10:00am class. Tony took me down the run once before lunch. I was even impressed with how much I improved from the top to the bottom. After lunch, I went to the 1:00pm class. I learned a lot about balance and how to go in the direction you want. It was tons of fun. My class ended at 3:00pm and I met up with Scott. We sat in the lounge for awhile before Julie met up with us. Around 4:00pm, Tony & Chris joined us and we headed out. I actually didn't experience too much muscle soreness but plenty of pain from falling down. My butt, right wrist and left ankle hated me. My butt is still a little bruised today, but my wrist and ankle feel all better. After getting back to Seattle, Tony & I went over to Chris' for soup, spiced wine and video games.

I woke up Sunday morning with a head cold. After taking care of Sandi's herd, I pretty much laid in bed until 1:30pm. Didn't do much yesterday or today due to being sick. After I finish eating dinner, I'm going to go take care of Sandi's herd before picking them up at the airport around 9:30 tonight.

I hope I hear about the Microsoft job tomorrow. If I'm feeling better tomorrow, I'm going to call around to the agencies I have signed up with and see if there is any temp work or something. If there isn't, then I'm going to send my resume off to a couple of other agencies. I just wasn't feeling well enough to do any of that today.

The interview seemed to go well. He didn't ask me questions that were too hard to answer. He did tell me that he met with 4 other people and will be making a decision next week (due to the holiday). So now more waiting.

I am sleepy since I got up at 9 this morning. I tried taking a nap, but that didn't work too well. Yeah, this is boring.

OK...I finally got the call. I have an interview at Microsoft tomorrow for a sales coordinator position. I am nervous!

This weekend should be fun! Tomorrow night, we are going to the Mercury. According to Tony, it's one of the busiest nights of the year and is tons of fun. Thursday will be filled with lots of Thanksgiving partiness. I think we are going to try and go to Julie's during the day and Ira's that night after Amanda gets off from work. Friday I think we may be going snowboarding at Steven's Pass. Julie has offered to lend me her old equipment and Chris has offered to pay for a lesson and lift ticket for me. I am a lucky girl. I am also excited! Expect more pictures!

I hate waiting for the phone to ring!

Here are the pictures from Saturday. Notice all of the snow on the tree branches! It was gorgeous. Words do no justice.

Spoke with Paula at CoreStaff today. She's going to submit my resume for 3 different coordinator positions at Microsoft tomorrow. More finger crossing please!

The LotR Two Towers extended version rocks! Go rent it or buy it!

I'm going to be taking care of Sandi and Jim's pets while they are gone for the holiday. Since they have a doggie, I have to go over there twice a day. Must. Get. On. Schedule.

I haven't been home much since Thursday. On said day, I went to Apple One to sign up with them. Since it was late in the day, I had to go back on Friday and take the tests. They are submitting my resume to 3 different positions. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I am also going to send my resume to Addeco and Kelly. I never heard back from Parker which makes me think they don't have anything right now. Even the temp market is bad right now.

We got up really early on Saturday (7am is really early for me!) to make breakfast before going to Crystal mountain. It was amazing how much snow there was! It was soooo beautiful up there. I didn't realize it until we got there, but I had been there before. When I lived in Seattle previously, Dad took me up there to see Mt. Rainier when it was the end of the season. Anyway, I took my camera to take some pictures. I took a few and gave it to Tony so he could take some pictures from the top of the mountain. When he went to take a picture, the battery died. Bah! Once it recharges, I'll upload the pictures that I did get. I need thick socks for my boots. My feet were very cold. I stayed in the lodge and read while the others snowboarded. They were all afraid that I was bored, but it takes a lot for me to get bored; especially when I am in such a beautiful place.

We got back to Seattle around 6:30pm. I ran home and ate some dinner before going to pick up Sandi to go to Jose's show. OMG it was great! It was a tribute show to They Might Be Giants and it was such a good time. Yay!

Tonight, Chris is having a Lord of the Rings movie night at his house. He's got one of those projector screen TV's. It's so fun to watch movies over there.

I spent 2 grueling hours testing at Office Team yesterday. My brain felt very mushy by the end. Anyway, I did well on the tests and all, but then found out that they have no positions right now! Usually, I do not get called by agencies unless they have something in mind for me that will start right away. Bah.

I set up an appointment with AppleOne for tomorrow. Yes, more testing. I'm hoping that they will have something. I'm tired of not working!

The temperature is dropping here again. It really seemed like it was going to snow last night, but it didn't (at least not in the city). We are going to the mountains this weekend so Tony, Chris and Julie can go snowboarding. I hope to start taking lessons once I can afford it. I'm going with them so I can play in the snow :-)

This has to be quick cause I have to go get ready.
My weekend wasn't the best at first. Mainly because my unemployment benefits are on hold until they figure out the deal with Product Partners.
Weekend was a-okay. Yesterday, I called Corestaff (I will hopefully hear from them by the end of the week) and sent my resume to Office Team and Parker. Got a call from Office Team about an hour ago. I'm going in this afternoon to do testing and whatnot. Hopefully they will find me a placement next week or sooner so I have some money coming in. I gotta run since I'm bussing it down there and am not sure how long it will take.

I decided to do a google search on "Snake in Seattle" and look what came up: PKSnake's Xanga Site Beware of the music! I have never heard of Xanga before. I like Blogger. So a kid 10 years younger than me also refers to himself as Snake.

I haven't been up to too much lately. I've been organizing my apartment and computer and looking for jobs. I had to go to Corestaff yesterday to sign a different release form specifically for Microsoft. I didn't get to talk to the rep I met with before; she was in a meeting. If I don't hear from her by Monday, I'm going to give her a call.

Tony & I went to Chris' last night and played this snowboarding game for most of the night. It is so fun and addictive! I'm looking forward to actually being able to go snowboarding soon (if I have the $$).

Tomorrow night, I'm going to a party with Teresa. On Saturday, I have book club and then Julie's party that night. Sunday, we get to pick up Chris from the airport. It will be a busy weekend!

The weekend was pretty mellow. Watched some movies. Played some video games. Did some laundry. Hung out with Tony. Enjoyed the lunar eclipse.

We have cloud cover again so the temps are warming up. There has been snow in the mountains which is always exciting.

So maybe i'm not in the writing mood right now. My apologies.

Hey lookie! You can leave me comments now! I don't know why I didn't look into this previously...

:-(
I got a call from unemployment. Product Partners is denying that I was ever an employee. But I was. The call was stressful. Now their claim is under investigation.

Tony got a job! Yay! It doesn't start until the middle of this month so he is a little paranoid that something will fall through, but I don't think it will. It's his ideal job, too, so it seems almost too good to be true.

After looking for jobs for a month, I've come to the conclusion that I'm pretty much going to need to go through a staffing agency. They are quite popular around here. I'm going to hold off for a week or so to see if CoreStaff can get me placed at Microsoft. Problem is, I can't get ahold of Patricia to see if she received the form in the mail. I'm afraid she moved and didn't get it. She hasn't responded to my emails and I just called her today and left a voicemail. If she doesn't call me back today, I'm calling the agency and requesting they send one to Greg.

The weather has been very clear here which means it has also been very cold. It got in the 20's last night and it wasn't the first time! I need more warmer socks - especially boot socks. It's very nice out today. I love Seattle.

Ack. I can't believe it's November already. This year has flown by!

This weekend was fun (of course!) and full of costumes. I actually didn't take very many pictures because so many other people were. On Friday, I picked out this religious-themed robe from the Open Circle closet with a little halo. Wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it. Went over to Tony's and he helped me complete my costume - Druid High Priestess. I guess it worked out OK. Tony was originally just going to be a suicide bomber, but he changed it to Wiccan Religious Fanatic to not offend anyone. His costume turned out really well. He had this fake bomb he made years ago, so he took it apart and made a bomb vest.

First, we went to a party out in Redmond. There were some pretty creative costumes there. After running out of mixers, we called up some friends to see how the party they were at was. They said it was too crowded and kinda sucked, so we planned on meeting at Mercury. After last call, no one was ready to go home and Tony ended up having a little impromptu party.

Saturday night, we went to Natalie's bad 80's prom party. Tony & I dressed as the kids too cool to go to the prom. Not too many people dressed up as that theme, but there were still lots of costumes. It was weird teasing my hair to make it big again.

Sunday, Tony and I went and had brunch at Mae's. Since he doesn't eat big meals like me, we can easily split one dish which makes eating out affordable on our limited incomes. We had to pick up Chris to take him to the airport for his New Zealand trip. After getting back to his house, Amanda came over with The Italian Job. That was a fun movie. We then decided to get Legally Blonde II. Now that was an awful movie. Seriously.

OK - go view Halloween pictures here. I will be adding to this gallery once I get some pictures from Amanda and Chris.

And I finally got the link to the fashion show. Go view it here.

I did well on the tests and interviewing process, but that doesn't mean i'm going to start working on Monday. My references have to fill out a form that I mail to them and then they have to mail it back. Isn't that nuts?! The rep I spoke with today said there are tons of positions at Microsoft and seemed pretty positive about being able to place me there. Thank goodness I have unemployment.

I have an interview tomorrow for a customer service rep position at Speakeasy. I don't think I'm going to go. I really don't want to do customer service again for a 24-hour call center. Plus, it would be a step backwards. I don't want to go that far backwards. I also don't want to work weekends.

It's cold here.

Good news: I'm going to hook up with Stine tomorrow and she's going to take me to her theater group so I can find a costume for the Halloween parties this weekend. Yay! Tony still doesn't know what he is going to be. Maybe something as simple as Mr. Clean. It's not easy coming up with costumes when you have no money.

According to Rob Brezsny, I'm supposed to dress like a relative for Halloween this year:

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You have two biological parents,
four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. You wouldn't
be you if it weren't for those 14 people. The legacy they
bequeathed you played a major role in determining your talents
and flaws, your predilections and aversions. And this is a perfect
astrological moment to get to know them better. In fact,
deepening your connection to your family's history will provide
crucial clues as you seek to reinvigorate your tired old
perspectives on long-running dilemmas. Are you brave enough
to mutate your understanding of where you came from and
where, therefore, you belong? Halloween costume suggestion:
the ancestor who fascinates you the most.

I have an interview/testing with the agency that works with Microsoft in filling their administrative positions at 1:30 today. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I don't know how well I'm going to do on the PowerPoint since I haven't used it in a couple of years, but I'm going to read up on it before I go.

It was supposed to rain all day today, but instead the clouds just hovered and made it very dark here. It was nice.

I got an email & call about a job as an employee relations rep. I do not have experience doing this, but something made the Volt rep contact me. We are going to talk more tomorrow morning. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I went over to Tony's last night and made stuffed red bell peppers. Chris & Amanda came over and we watched "The Whale Rider". Very good movie.

Not much else is going on here :-)

I carved a spider into my jack-o-lantern. It's pretty nifty.
The fashion show was fun. I'll post a link to pictures once I receive it.
Sunday I was TIRED. Didn't do much of anything except worry about Jenn & Duncan. I knew that there were fires in S. Cali, but I had no idea how close they were to J&D. It is so scary.

I posted some pictures that Tony took at the Arboretum. You can go look at them here.

There isn't much else going on right now. It's supposed to get really cold here this week. I hope I stay warm enough. I'm buying my tickets for Florida today. I'll come up with the money from somewhere.

Last night, we went over to Chris' to watch a couple of scary movies. The first was called Audition - it's Japanese. It was scary enough, but not nightmare-giving scary. There was one part that scared Tony so much that he hurt my hand from squeezing it so hard. Wussy ;-) The second movie, In the Mouth of Madness, wasn't scary. At all. It was pretty stupid like most American horror movies. We recently watched The Eye - it's Chinese. That was pretty scary. Are we watching all of these scary movies to prepare for Halloween? Maybe. I dunno.

We are going over to Teresa's tonight for a pumpkin-carving party. I honestly can't remember the last time I carved a pumpkin. I hope mine doesn't turn out awful. Tomorrow is the fashion show - I have to be there at 3:30 and the show doesn't even start until 10. It's going to be a long day and might be quite tiring, but I think it will be fun. I'll be modeling for Xenoware - I won't know the outfit until the show. Sunday will probably be a lazy recovery day because, you know, that's what Sundays are for.

I've been rearranging my apartment and trying to settle in more. Might as well make use of my time! I also got my unemployment form in the mail today. I'm pretty sure this means I qualify. Everyone keep their fingers crossed for me. It would relieve the stress of feeling like I have to find a job ASAP.

I haven't gotten any responses from the resumes that I have sent out so far...I know it takes time. I mean, I've gotten emails for things I have no interest in whatsoever like selling cars or becoming a financial advisor. How am I qualified for either of those jobs? Whatever. The job market is less than desirable, but we all know that. I am trying but feel like I should be trying harder. But, I really don't want to take a crappy job out of desperation.

I just received this week's Free Will Astrology. The beginning of the email starts like this:

We here at Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology Newsletter
want to know
if you're willing
to push hard to get better,
improve your attitude,
grow your devotion to the truth,
fuel your commitment to beauty,
refine your emotions,
hone your dreams,
face your shadow,
cure your ignorance,
raise your IQ,
and soften your heart,
even as you always accept yourself
for exactly who you are
with all your so-called imperfections.

And my horoscope:

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I confess to have fallen prey to a
sin that has become widespread: overusing the term "sacred." To
my credit, I haven't sunk to the vulgar depths of New Age
hucksters who offer workshops in "sacred e-mail marketing" or
"sacred dog-walking." But still, I want to be more spare in
invoking the term so that on those rare occasions when I do, you
will be appropriately awed. Like now, for instance. I predict you
will soon be roused to reverence by a visitation that fits the
description given by Phil Cousineau in his book, *The Art of
Pilgrimage:* "If you aren't trembling as you approach the
sacred, it isn't the real thing. The sacred, in its various guises
as holy ground, art, or knowledge, evokes emotion and
commotion."

OK, world. Show me something sacred.

This just seems too wrong to be true. Why do people think that this is OK? I don't care what age the person is, s/he should know that doing something like this to an animal is wrong.

I had a nice, mellow weekend. On Friday, I took a little walk around Wallingford to take some pictures of the trees starting to change. You can see them here. Last week, it was very windy out and still was on Friday, but it wasn't raining. Friday night, I went over to Jose's so we could exchange TMBG stuff. We both lamented on how it was likely we aren't going to be able to go to the show in a couple of weeks since we are both jobless :( It happens. We'll just have to catch them next time. However, if I am gainfully employed by 11/2, we are so there. Friday was the first night I went to see Jose's new place and it is HUGE! He totally scored on finding a sweet place. He pays $45 a month more in rent than i do and his place is easily 3x the size of mine. And, it has a washer and dryer! *sigh*

Saturday and Sunday were warm and dry. On Saturday, Tony and I went for a motorcycle drive to the arboretum to take pictures. There were several people there to do the same. We had his camera - I'll have to find some time to get on his computer so I can add those pics to my gallery. That night, we went to Teresa's to hang out.

Sunday was a mellow day of not doing much. That's what Sundays are for, no?

It started raining again today. Heavy rain for this area. It makes me feel all cozy.

Where did all of my cookies go? I hate it when they disappear when I don't delete them.

It's very windy here. Yesterday, it rained hard (for Seattle) most of the day. Fortunately, it stopped enough for us to walk down to The Crocodile to see Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots. Interesting show. It rained a little on us on the way home.

Tuesday, I went over to Teresa's after she got off of work. I made us some dinner and we watched the television. My week hasn't been too eventful. Spending time on the computer looking for jobs and posting my resume to job websites. It seems to take a lot of time.

It's so sad. I'm ready to get a job so I can spend money again. I am such the consumer and it makes me feel guilty. I mostly want/need new clothes. I really don't have many clothes for the weather up here. I spend much of my internet browsing time window shopping. Sad, sad.

I rearranged my room yesterday to get my bed out from under the windows. I could feel the cold air on my head at night. I'm still not done...I want to set up one of the corners for art projects. I think I'm going to move my dining table into my bedroom until I can afford a new table for art stuff. More stuff to buy.

Yes, I am a consumer but I'm not proud of it.

Both of my kitties are trying to sit on my lap again. It just doesn't work so well.

Friday night, Tony, Chris and I went to see Fatal Peril - it is the production that Lyam is/was in. It ended this weekend. UMO ensemble does a variety of avant-garde theater such as clown work. It's hard to explain, but it was unlike any theater experience I had ever had. The dialog was minimal yet the story was extensive. It was haunting and enthralling and I thank Lyam for giving us his last comp ticket so we could afford to go :-)

Saturday flew by as usual. I think I did productive stuff or something like that. Saturday night, I picked up Teresa and we met Tony and Chris to do a little bar hopping. We ran into some other people at Mercury and all ended up back at Tony's for a late-night party of sorts. Much silliness ensued and was fun as always.

Sunday was a very lazy day. Had brunch with Chris and Tony at Julia's on Capital Hill. I love me some brunch. And then, I ended up with a belly ache for a good part of the day so Tony took care of me cause he's a sweetie like that. We watched Buffy and that will usually always make me feel better. I chose not to go out to a birthday celebration since I wasn't feeling well.

It rained for a lot of this weekend and stuff. We had some really high winds on Sunday and that was pretty exciting. But, it seems that many spiders have taken refuge in my dry household. I am OK with a couple, but this many weirds me out. Plus, I've been finding those weird bites on me again. I think I'm going to have to do a little eviction later today.

it's been a few uneventful couple of days, so not much to write about. i baked another quiche for Angel night at Tony's last night. Stine & Lyam came over which was cool and Chris bailed on us even though it was his idea to have Angel night at Tony's. I just don't know if I can get into this show like I did with Buffy. After Angel was over, we watched the musical. Ah, it was wonderful.

It rained lots today and my manager turned on the heat so my apartment is nice and toasty. I kinda wish I had some control over the temperature :p

Yahoo! News - Polls: Davis Out, Schwarzenegger Wins Oh shit.

Have I mentioned how in love with this city I am lately? Fall is on its way and the leaves are starting to change. I will take pictures when the change is in full-force. I'm laying in bed yesterday afternoon resting for a bit and just listened to the lovely rain. I went for a walk a bit ago and went down to the park to sit on the hill and read a resume book. The wind was blowing so hard that it made it very difficult. Plus, the book didn't have what I was looking for, but the sit in the park was nice.

My kitchen sink has been clogged for days now. I finally got some Drano crap, but it hasn't done a lick of good. The bad thing is that Screech likes to drink the water that has been sitting in the sink.

Oh- another gross Screech story. I come home the other day to find that he had ripped open the bag of litter and decided to eat some. Not only did I have to clean up a bunch of litter, but I also had to clean up kitty vomit. Although the litter is made out of corn, it isn't very digestible.

What is a girl supposed to do with a crazy cat?

Pictures from the party at Chris' house. I did not take these pictures and they are not edited. There are pictures of panties and boobies and girls kissing and all-around silliness.

On Sunday, Chris, Tony and I went to a gallery showing of one of Tony's friends. Her and her boyfriend recently got back from Tokyo and New York where she had showings. Here's the website Tony built for her. Later in the day, we picked up Teresa and went to go see Spellbound. Teresa and I have been trying to see this movie for a couple of months now. We all thoroughly enjoyed it. If you like documentaries, go see it!

Saturday night, I decide to make this quiche from a recipie in Vegetarian Times. I go to the store and buy the ingredients - one includes flour. I get home, unload the groceries, and leave the little bag of flour on the counter. When I get out of the shower, I find the bag ripped open and flour everywhere. I'm pretty sure it was Screech since I couldn't see flour on him if I tried and Persephone was clean. At least he left me enough to still make the quiche (it was a hit!) I have a very strange cat.

What happens when you try something new and different? Sometimes it's good, other times it's not so good. On Thursday, Tony gives me a call and asks if I want to go see the Blue Man Group on Friday. His friend has some free tickets and has offered some to us. I said sure...why not. Later we find out it's in Auburn. No big deal. Friday rolls around and now we are thinking that we prolly don't want to go. We contemplate giving away the tickets, but decide to go when we find out that Chris is also going. We drivedrivedrive over the mountains and through the woods until we get to this amphitheater. We weren't dressed for an outdoor show. It was kinda chilly and the place smelled like cow manure. We meet up with Chris and some other people, get our tickets and go in. There were opening bands...we waited in line for bad coffee through one band's complete set. The show finally starts and, well, it sucked. It was a bad "rock" concert or whatever. Needless to say, Tony, Chris and I took off about 20/30 minutes into the show.

The nice thing about that night: the fog was thick and heavy. Driving wasn't so fun, but the city was gorgeous. We got back to Tony's house where we met up with Amanda and watched "Identity".

Amanda, Tony and I went to Mae's for brunch this morning. Oh, how I love that place. It's just plain yummy.

Why I love Rob Brezsny:

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Today and every day, five million
lightning bolts will flash between earth and sky somewhere on
our planet. At any given moment, two thousand thunderstorms
are raging. While you may not be in the literal presence of one of
these elemental outbreaks in the coming week, Aries, I believe
you will channel a similar kind of energy: You'll be fiercely and
tenderly alive with the blended force of primal fire and water.
This doesn't necessarily mean you'll careen out of control; you
may be able to express the booming power in its most
constructive form, cleansing and clarifying everything you
touch.

What kind of thinker are you? Take a little quiz and find out. I am apparently Interpersonal:

Like to think about other people, and try to understand them
Recognise differences between individuals and appreciate that different people have different perspectives
Make an effort to cultivate effective relationships with family, friends and colleagues

Like interpersonal thinkers, Leonardo had lots of friends and contacts, and was a popular figure at the Italian court. Other Interpersonal thinkers include Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, William Shakespeare

Careers which suit Interpersonal thinkers include
Politician, Psychologist, Nurse, Counsellor, Teacher

And if you are really bored, take another quiz. This one is a personality test. I took both of these quizzes last night and don't recall the results on this one.

I find these quizzes on my friends' livejournals/blogs. It's a fun little source of entertainment.

My last day of work was filled with scurrying to finish reports that Joe requested the day before and making sure everything was updated and instructions written. Right after I finished working, I started to get ready to go over to Stine and Lyam's house and also talked with Dad & Carolyn. I didn't get to hear too much about the Panama Canal cause 1) they were still tired from the trip and 2) this was the first time I had the opportunity to tell them my job sitch. After talking with them for a little bit, I finished getting ready and headed out for the night. I knew I needed to surround myself with friends that night or else I'd just sit around and feel sorry for myself.

Wednesday was weird...stayed up late the previous night because I could and slept late on Wed. I woke up feeling like I was supposed to be doing something...oh yeah! Working! Duh. Anyway, since Tony is also recently unemployed and has free time, he took me to a vegetarian restaurant close to the U-District. Very yummy! There are so many more places to eat veggie in this city compared to L.A. Afterwards, we went to Trader Joe's. It's important to eat at home when on restricted funds. After buying lots of food, I took him home and came home for a nap before hanging out with Teresa.

Teresa and I have been trying to see "Spellbound" for months now. We go to the theater to see it and it just left. Well, last night we were going to go see it and I had the theater all wrong. It was at this theater in the UD last week, but apparently left this past weekend. Since I do not remember the name of the place, when I looked online I assumed it was at the same theater. I was wrong. D'oh! We didn't get to see it last night, but it is still showing at the cheap theater in Shoreline. So, this Sunday, we are so there! I figure we just weren't meant to pay full price for the movie. And now, $3 is a lot better for me than $9. Since we didn't go see the movie, we went back to her place and watched Tivo'd Sex in the City and ate popcorn.

It was a good way to spend my first day unemployed.

Today, I write up different versions of my resume and look for jobs. Later today, Tony and I are going to the Seattle Art Museum to take advantage of the free admission. The first Thursday of every month, they let you in free. We also may go down to the Pioneer Square Art Walk. It's good to find the free/cheap stuff :-)

One more day of work. I'm going to miss watching lots of birdies and having kitties sleep on my lap while working. I've been spoiled.

If we converse in the very near future, please don't inquire how the job hunt is going. It will only put me in a foul mood. I don't want to talk about it. Give me a chance to deal with being laid off again. Thanks.

So the parties were fun. Friday night, I thought Amanda's party was pretty mellow, but someone actually called the cops and made a noise complaint. Didn't stay there too late - prolly until 1:30am or something. Disappeared for a little while to go to Jose's roast. We got lost getting there and couldn't stay too long, but what we did see was quite amusing.

The party at Chris' house was full-o-drinking as usual. He always has the alcohols that I have never heard of and would never have the opportunity to try if I didn't know him. We didn't stay up until sunrise this time, but it was early morning before we headed to sleepyland. There were 2 people with cameras at this party. If I can get ahold of them, i'll upload them to my gallery also.

Had brunch on Sunday with a few people cause Murray was in town. This was the first time I got to meet the Murray and he is quite the friendly dude and seems to know everyone. Really. He's never lived here and knows tons of people. It's uncanny, I tell you. The rest of Sunday was quite mellow due to the need to recover from the prior night.

I should think about making some dinner now and being somewhat productive with my evening.

Pictures from Alaska! I haven't put comments on them yet, but feel free to take a peek.

Horrah!

Alaska!

As many of you know, I had my reservation about going on another cruise. This time, we were on a different cruise line so the ship's environment wasn't gaudy and huge like the previous cruise I went on in 1997. It was like being in a nice hotel. The first couple of days were difficult because we didn't stop at all until Monday and were away from the shore for most of Sunday. But, the beauty of Alaska made up for it. This region is so green and lush. So much of it is untouched and appears pristine. I know that these cruise ships and tourists definitely have an impact on the area, but I think it makes people appreciate what is here and they will fight to keep it the way that it is with the deforestation and oil drilling. Yes, I am a bit of an idealist.
This makes me sad.

Anyway, I wish many of you were here to see just how gorgeous it is here. I cannot describe how it makes one feel. The water, rain, trees, fog - it all works together perfectly and is absolutely breathtaking. It's like living National Geographic if that makes any sense. So here's what I did on my trip:

Saturday, September 6th

Jenn, Duncan and I met Kate at Mae's for a yummy brunch. We go back to my house and Kate takes J&D to the ship. I stay and finish cleaning and packing. Tony comes over to pick me up and then we go pick up Teresa. He drops us off at the ship around 2 or so. We check in and head to the ship. On our way up, we see Dad, Carolyn, Jenn & Duncan waving at us from D&C's balcony. We meet up with them and then I think Teresa and I took a nap. Jenn comes and gets us when we start to leave Seattle.

We pretty much just hung out until dinner. I think we slept some more. Both T & I got little sleep the night prior. We met up for dinner with everyone (Dad, Carolyn, cousin Becky, cousin Anne, Jenn & Duncan) at 8pm and gorged ourselves. After dinner, we went to the show that night. It was an illusionist; he did some pretty cool tricks, but wasn't too funny.

Sunday, September 7th

This was our first full day on the ship and it was all travel with no port stops. We were going pretty fast and the boat was quite rocky. Lots of people experienced seasickness on the ship, but only Anne did in our group. Teresa and I got room service for breakfast. We lolled around for most of the day and ate a lot. We did go to this nature slide show that bored me to sleep. After eating too much again at dinner T&I went back to our cabin and watched a bad movie on the T.V.

Monday, September 8th

We docked early in Juneau; I think many were happy that the boat was no longer moving. Jenn, Duncan, Teresa and I decided to forgo any of the overpriced cruise tours and took a shuttle to Mendenhall Glacier Park. Unfortunately, we didn't do any hiking. Most of the trails were closed due to the rain and some didn't want to hike in the rain. We did get some good views of the glacier, but much was hidden with fog. It was still beautiful. We stayed for about an hour before heading back to town. The four of us had some coffee and went our own ways. Teresa and I did a bit of shipping - she got a moose and I got a backpack. After getting bored with the touristy shopping, we decided to tour the local bars. This town had many, but we only went to two. They made the drinks cheap and strong in Juneau. Apparently, they are also not used to getting tipped. The person working at both places tried to give us the tip back like they were confused. It was strange. After enjoying the dive bars, we head back for the ship for a quick nap and shower before dinner. After dinner, Dad, Jenn, Duncan, Teresa and I went to the little movie theater and watched A Mighty Wind.

Tuesday, September 9th

Today was another onboard day, but we were sailing through Glacier Bay Park. This was by far the best day of the cruise. Teresa and I got up around 9 and had breakfast. We met up with the rest of the crew in Becky and Anne's suite. They were in the large one with a huge deck. We stayed there for most of the morning and early afternoon. When we were in front of the Margerie Glacier, T&I went up to the top deck to take pictures. This large hunk of ice is just too huge and beautiful - I do not feel I can adequately describe it. While we were up there, a huge chunk fell off into the bay. It was very exciting! We went back to B&A's suite and while we were there, another huge chunk fell off! Dad laughed at my excitement :-) Around 2 or so, Teresa and I went up to the lounge at the top of the forward of the ship to wait for the aquatic mammals. Around 3, we went outside to the observation deck. At first, we didn't see too many. I think the first thing we saw was a sea otter. A very cute sea otter of course! And then the whales came. We saw several humpback whales and I got to see at least 15 killer whales! It was so exciting and everything I hoped for. At one point, I was running from one side of the ship to the other to see all of the whales and then I realized that there was no one else on the deck. It had started to rain really hard so most had gone inside. I couldn't let the rain and wind stop me from seeing the whales! We also saw lots and lots of porpoises. Oh, it was a great day. After we got out of the main area with the aquatic mammals, Teresa and I went back up to the lounge to warm up and continue to look out for more whales. We had to leave to shower before dinner and again ate too much. Well, I didn't. My dinner wasn't so good that night. We did play some Simpson's Bowling afterwards :-)

Wednesday, September 10th

This was our second day in a port - Sitka, Alaska. It's a smaller town than Juneau. Jenn, Teresa and I went ashore mid-morning to walk around town. It was very crowded since there were 4 ships in the port. The shops were touristy, be we did find a good coffee shop. We didn't spend too much time in town before heading back to the ship. I regretted not doing any hiking because it seemed a good area to do so. When we got back to the ship, we ate lunch and went our separate ways. I went and worked out for a while and relaxed for the rest of the day before dinner. At dinner that night, we noticed our server wasn't his usual chipper self. We found out that his brother had just died and they wouldn't let him leave the ship early to go home. So, so sad.

Thursday, September 11th

We arrive in Ketchikan, Alaska early in the morning. Jenn & I decided we were going to hike around, so we took a little nature walk and did some exploring. Not only did we get to walk through some old growth forest, but we also saw thousands and thousands of salmon. We were only at the port until 1pm. We tooled around on the ship for a while. T&I decided that tonight was going to be Sintastic. After dinner, we went to the casino where Teresa proceeded to win $176 on quarter slots. It took about 10 minutes :-) We chose not to press our luck and went up to the Crow's Nest to have drinks. Jenn & Duncan hung in there until around midnight. Towards the end of the night Teresa and I were dancing to 80's booty rap music. Aw, jeah!

Friday, September 12th

We docked in Victoria, BC in the late afternoon. Jenn, Duncan, Teresa and I went to town for dinner. We didn't do too much exploring since we only had a few hours and it was cold and dark. We did eat some really yummy food at a British Pub. I think we watched another bad movie that night.

Well, there's not much more to tell. We got back to Seattle very early on Saturday. J,D,T & I were the last group to get off the ship. We took Teresa home, went back and picked up Duncan and had lunch at Saigon Pearl on Cappy Hill. And the rest is no longer Alaska history :-)

Duncan flaked on me, so i get two nights to stay at home. Last night, I did some much needed cleaning. Unfortunately, there is still much to do. I had to run some errands after work, so I decided to walk. Dusk weather was pleasant and the sunset was absolutely gorgeous, so I walked around for awhile dreaming of owning my own house. Must go cook dinner now.

I swear I'll put up the Alaska update as soon as I have some free time. I've been very busy. So, I'll do a week's worth of updates.

Tuesday night, went to Mercury (a club) I think. I know I definitely went on Wednesday. Wed afternoon, my boss calls me and tells me that he has to lay me off. I have until the end of the month. I wasn't surprised to hear this, but I was hoping that the job would last until the end of the year. The team I support has been doing pretty poorly as far as sales go and they just couldn't afford to keep my position. Now I must prepare for the job hunt. Ack.

Thursday, I went over to Teresa's house. We made fajitas, chatted a bit and watched some T.V.

Friday I was feeling ill so I went over to Tony's so he could take care of me and make me feel better :-) We watched 'Road to Wellville'. I love that movie. By the end of the night, I did feel better.

Saturday I had a book club meeting to discuss 'A Lesson Before Dying'. I didn't really like the first half of the book, but the last half was pretty good. We had a sunny day yet still cool. Lovely! Afterwards, I dropped Teresa off at her house and came back home for a few. I went and picked up Tony and we went back to Teresa's for a night of gin indulgence which is always fun.

Sunday was sunny and warmer. Tony & I went out riding on his motorcycle after lunch at The Globe (it's all vegan!). This city is just so beautiful. It was fun to ride around on a bike - it was my first time and all! Around 4, we went over to Chris' house to hang out and ended up staying there until after midnight. The time just flies when we sit around and chat.

And that brings us to today. Been doing the worky-worky. Tonight is Mercury. Duncan is in town this week on business - I hope to get together with him on Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday is the Cruxshadows show, Friday is Jose's and Amanda's birthday parties and Saturday is Julie's & Natalie's birthday party at Chris'. Yep, another busy week.

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain. It was lovely. It's typical Seattle weather today and it makes me so happy. I don't think the kitties are enjoying it - they aren't used to the chill. Screech is sitting on my lap now which is rare and Persephone just doesn't know what to do since she also wants to be on my lap. It has made her grumpy. I want to go for a long walk, but must work instead. The days are definitely getting shorter as fall arrives.

Got back in town on Saturday. Jenn & Duncan left today. I did offline journal while on the ship. I'll transcribe it later. I've also uploaded my few Alaska pictures to my computer, but still need to create the gallery. I'm just not in the frame of mind to do it tonight. The ship didn't sink and I didn't get eaten by a bear, so all is good :-)

I installed the new Google Toolbar and am loving it so far. I highly recommend it.

I've been trying to get ready for our cruise to Alaska. Actually, I've been getting ready for my visitors more. Anna is going to housesit/kittysit for me which makes me very happy. It's great to be able to exchange favors and they both be very beneficial to both friends. I wish she wasn't leaving so soon, but I understand why she must go.

Screech is trying to discreetly make his way to my waffle and is sitting on my mouse. He's so silly. It's making it difficult to get work done.

I did a socially inept thing last night and I still can't forget about it. I'm sometimes too hard on myself.

Good news for a change.

I need coffee. I ran out before I left for L.A. and haven't had a chance to get to PCC since being back. I've been going up to Irwin's everyday, but I feel guilty spending $4 on coffee every morning. Yesterday I bought drip and it just wasn't as good. I am glad it's Friday and a 3 day weekend.

I just had a geek moment. I'm cleaning up the leads for the team today and see the name Michael Dorn. I picture Worf doing Power 90. Heh. Geek.

I had a pretty good time in L.A. I did realize that I haven't been in Seattle long enough to want to go on vacation if that makes any sense. And now I go on vacation again in a week. But then I won't leave for awhile.

I need to get to work. I might have time for more of an update this weekend, but somehow I doubt it. Sorry :-)

Snake's in L.A. right now. Got here yesterday afternoon. Lyssa picked me up from the airport and then we went to Del Taco. When we got back to her house, I tried to work but could not connect to PP's common drive. I could do no work. So, took most of the day off and relaxed.

I'm at work today and am now eating my favorite sammich from the deli. Mmm! Unfortunately, I'm getting sick. My throat really hurts. I can't be sick for several reasons. 1) I have to work. 2) We have to play all day at Universal on Saturday. and 3) I want to see Mathilda and will not risk getting a little baby sick. I need to hunt down some of those herbal pills we have that work so well. Anyway...

Since I can't work at Lyssa's, I'm going to try and head back to Seattle earlier. I just can't miss more work and I won't be able to get to the office on Monday. Ack.

OK, must get back to work.

This makes me sick. Stupid. Stupid. STUPID. I can't rant about it because I will get too angry.

I'm having VPN issues again and it's nothing that is simple to figure out. I need to go run out and get a network card for my laptop so I can figure out if the issue is with my ISP or my desktop. It's just poopy because it makes work much more difficult.

I only have a few more days until I go to L.A. for my little trip. I've decided to rent a car for a couple of days so I can get to and from work easily. I need to train Patricia on how to do my job for when I'm on the cruise. Problem is, I don't even know how to pull reports from the new system. It's up this week, but since I can't get into the VPN, I can't do anything. I'm hoping that Joe will say it's OK if the reports are delayed a week.

Sleepy is me. Watched the moon rise last night over the mountains. Saw Mars also. There was a meteor shower starting last night, but it was more like early this morning. Did get to see a few shooting stars. I love living in Seattle.

I've been dealing with spotty internet connection since yesterday. Even though my PC was not infected with this worm that's going around, I've had problems with connectivity. I think it's finally fixed, but it wasn't my doing. I don't know whos it was and I don't really care. I'm just glad I can work again.

I unpacked all of my boxes on Sunday! Now, there's just a bunch of crap everywhere! It takes awhile to organize it all, but I must get it done before I go to Alaska. Teresa and I did not get to go to the play because it was sold out. They extended the showing, so we are going to try a different night.

I need to get back to work.

Do you see this? Do you see? I say I'm going to post daily and now I'm totally slacking! I'm not really slacking - I just haven't been home. I talked to Jenn on Friday and was telling her about how I wasn't going to make any plans for Saturday so I could stay home to clean and unpack. Later that afternoon I made plans. Went out to lunch and hung out with a friend on Capitol Hill. Came back home and left immediately to Sandi's. We went over to her friend's house to have dinner and watch the filming of this unusual comedy routine called "Puppetry of the Penis." It was strange and that's all I'm saying here. So yeah, I didn't get anything done in my place yesterday.

After work on Friday, I picked up Christine and we went to the opening night of "Action Movie, The Play." It's the new show that Lyam and Jose' are in and it was just too funny. Sandi and I are prolly going to go again after the show has been running for a little while.

Tonight, Teresa and I are going to the play "Point Break Live!". This should also be a funny one. Since it doesn't start until 8, I have time to actually work on my apartment. I also was out on Wednesday and Thursday, but I don't feel like typing all of the sordid details. I pretty much just hung out with friends and had good times.

I awoke to the sound of rain yesterday and today. What a gorgeous sound. As I laid in bed this morning listening to the rain, it thundered twice. It doesn't thunder much in this area. I've been waiting awhile for this weather. It makes me a very happy Snake.

On Monday night, I went bar hopping in my neighborhood in hopes on finding a cool hangout. No such luck. The places around here just aren't my thing. Oh well. I had fun nonetheless.

Yesterday was productive. After work, I went to the pet store and then to Trader Joe's. I now have lots of food. I did go to PCC on Sunday and stocked up on fresh produce. Healthy eating is good eating! Now I just need to start working out again. It seems that since my social life has picked up, I need to work out in the morning or during lunch. I just need to find my motivation to start up again. Did I leave it in L.A.?

Speaking of L.A., I'm going to be making a trip there shortly for a long weekend. Work is throwing a summer party so I decided to go. The great thing is is that I don't have to take any time off from work! I'll be working wonky hours on the days that I am flying, but my work can and will get done. I am excited to get to see several people. I know I won't be able to see everyone, but I think I'll get to see most. My friends Dean and Amy are about to have a baby so I really want to go see them.

Time to get back to work!

Saturday, I was not productive at all before going out. But, Jose' and I had a good time. Good discussions about stuff. Sunday, I went over to Stine's with Sandi and we had a girly day. We ate chocolate, swam in the pool, watched a movie and talked about boys. We also decided that it should be a regular occurrance. It's great to get quality girly time. It was late when I got home, so no productivity on getting stuff done. I did pay my bills and started to make a list of things I need to do, so that's a start.

This week is already filling up. I have plans tonight, Wednesday and Friday. I might still have plans on Saturday to go hiking, but we'll see. I need at least one night to not do stuff.

I'm eating an apple right from the core and it's great! It's the little things that make me appreciate not having braces any longer.

Happy Birthday, Dad! I'm sending you lots of love and hoping that your trip is going well in your new van. You will get your gift when I see you in September :-)

Does this describe me?

Wow! I didn't realize it had been so long since I put an update in here. I've been busy. Well, not today. Today I have been lazy.

Wednesday, I went to Discovery Park after work. Very cool place - must go again. Thursday, I was sick. My body was all out of wack. I think I let my blood sugar level drop too low and I just couldn't recover quickly. Everything I ate made me nauseous. I was also shakey throughout the day. Took most of the day off from working and laid in bed.

Last night went to a joint called Park Pub down by the zoo in Phinney Ridge. I've adopted Teresa's work buddies. She'll invite me out with them about once a week. They are an interesting bunch and that's all I'm saying.

Today I slept in and it was great. I got up, ate breakfast, and then took a nap. Lazy! I then fixed some lunch and watched Donnie Darko. Pretty good movie! Now I'm thinking I might have to be a little productive before I go out with Jose' tonight. I have plans for all day tomorrow so I must get stuff done today. Yet, I sit here. Heh.