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.