I have 12 minutes to write this post

I am being naughty and spending the last few minutes of my workday writing this post. Here is a summary of what's been going down in SeaTown:

Last night: laundry & cleaning fun
Monday night: Painting at Julie's
Sunday: lunch with Natalie, Julie & Tony at Blue C Sushi before helping Julie with house stuff. Dinner at Hopevine with Natalie, Chris, Chrisbee, Sunny, Tony and brief appearances by Cody, Josh and Brian.
Saturday: brunch at 5 Spot before heading over to Julie's to help with house stuff. Birthday party for Julie & Natalie at Chris' house that night.
Friday after work: NIN concert with Julie and then party at our house for Amanda's 30th birthday.

Weekend before last, we had people over on Friday night for Jeremiah's birthday party. On Saturday, we saw Dead Can Dance at the Paramount. Amazing show!

So yeah, I've been pretty busy. Tony's mom & sister are arriving on Friday. Stephanie will be leaving on Monday (sis) but Sherry will be staying all week.

Slack time = 0

I bought our tickets for our Florida trip in November. Whee!

Eeep

Chris posted the pictures he took when we went camping.

Busy as always. It was fabulous to see Jenn & squirmy monkey this past weekend. Next time, my visit will be all about spending time with them.

Florida trip update: We'll be moving it up a month to early/mid November. It looks like we'll be making a trip to Houston in late December thanks to Dad & Carolyn, so we don't want to take two weeks off in December. I'll let you all know after I talk to my boss. He's on Vacation this week, so it won't be until next week.

Oh and Bets - it's actually less expensive to fly into Tampa and out of Ft.Lauderdale. Go figure!

Back to work!

Visit to Florida

My 1-year anniversary with Health Solutions is October 1st. This means I finally get paid vacation! I'd like to plan a week-long trip to Florida in December. I just checked ticket prices - only $225 each! Here's my idea: we'll fly into Tampa and visit with family & stay with Kik & Amy if they will extend their hospitality out to us :) We'll then drive down to Naples and hang out with the parental units for a spell. Our trip will finish with a visit to Ft. Lauderdale to spend time with Betsy & Lindsay before flying out of the Ft. Lauderdale airport and hopefully they'll let us crash at their place until we leave.

We were thinking early December. How does that tentative plan sound to you?

Weekend in the woods

hello!

three-day work weeks always kick my ass.

Weekend update: Tony, Chris, Natalie, Julie and I headed to the Northern Cascades Saturday afternoon after Nat got off from work. We arrived at the campsite a couple of hours before dark and set everything up, started a fire and then cooked dinner. While I was packing earlier in the day, I pulled my upper back a little. When I woke up Sunday morning, I could barely move. I haven't been in that kind of pain in quite some time.

the plan for Sunday was to do this cool hike. I could barely move, so I stuck around with Julie (she wasn't planning on going) and we went to town to find some stuff that might provide me relief. It rained a bit Sunday morning and proceeded to rain throughout the day. We put up a tarp for protection before the rest of the crew got back. We were quite glad since it rained on and off for the rest of the night. We did the dinner thing again and then sat around the fire. That's what you do when you camp, right?

My mobility was up on Monday and I felt OK enough to do a bit of hiking. However, Natalie & tony were pretty wrecked from the previous day. We packed up camp and then headed to the hike that Cathy, Eric, Tony & I went on a couple of months ago since it's not too strenuous of a trail. After hanging out at Blue Lake for awhile, we headed back to the car and headed home.

We all had fun even though I was in pain. i'm still not quite right. The crew said the hike was awesome, so we definitely plan on going back next summer. The camping season is official over.

Laundry is calling...I'm headed off to San Diego tomorrow evening to help Jenn move into her new condo (we hope!)

Busy-ness & birthday

Last Friday was Tony's birthday. We took the day off from work to sleep late and have a lovely brunch at Coastal Kitchen. We lazed around the house until it was time to meet friends for dinner at Flying Fish. Ye-um! Afterwards, we did a bit of bar hopping around Belltown. There was crazy fun happening that night.

The next day, everyone had a serious hangover. Damn.

Saturday evening, we went over to Cathy & Eric's for bbq fun. Sunday, we slept in for a bit. I went over to Julie's in the afternoon to help her paint and put together some stuff.

I am feeling condensed.

We looked at 5 houses this evening.

Since I'm condensed, I'll have to leave you hanging. No, we didn't fall in love with any of them.

Pictures!

Go here to see pictures from Sunny's birthday dinner & the wedding.

And I was just reminded

I was looking through the Daily photos on Dooce and saw the bike accident one. It reminded me of the incident that happened on Saturday.

Saturday morning, Tony & I are hanging out and we get a call from Natalie saying, "Let's go have a celebratory lunch!" since she just finished her last final of this semester (working full time and going to school ain't easy, kids). After our lovely lunch at El Greco, Chris, Tony & I head to Chris' car to go shopping for wedding presents & stuff to wear to the event. As we are walking up the hill, a guy flies by us on his bike. Then..the CRASH.

Poor guy...the grocery bags he had HANGING FROM HIS HANDLE got caught in his wheel. Duh. We stayed with him until the medics came. No serious injuries...maybe a dislocated shoulder. He did have lots of scrapes. Poor Forest. He was totally in shock...I felt bad for the guy. At one point, he told the medics that he had been in a bike accident before and had post traumatic stress disorder from it. My question is...then why weren't you wearing a helmut?!?

Kale woes

I love me some kale. I would also love me a variety of recipes on how to use this Superfood, but all I find are stews/soups & greens & beans. I think I might need to come up with some new recipes. I can only eat so many greens & beans.

I love the bounty of produce I can find at the farmer's market. The eats I get there make the stuff I get at Safeway & Trader Joe's look like plastic. It makes me want a farm. I sure do love my vegetables. This week, I picked up some broccoli, corn, chard and butter lettuce. The broccoli & corn will be consumed tomorrow night alonged with marinated, baked salmon. Some of the chard will be used for a fabulous apple chard quiche. The butter lettuce will be consumed in salad form.

We viewed a fabulous house on Thursday. It was so freaking huge! We hope to speak with a loan officer at WaMu this Friday. This Friday is also Tony's birthday. We are taking the day off of work (paid because our boss rocks) and getting stuff done before meeting with friends for dinner.

We went to a wedding this past Saturday. Alls i got to say is, "Damn. My man looks HOT in a suit". pics soon.

Happy Birthday to a Sunny!

Sunny turned the big 2-9 today. A group of us went to Benihana for some eatertainment (one of many coin phrases uttered by Sunny). The company was good as always.

We haven't looked at any more houses since the last one but did get a good faith estimate from one broker on what we qualify for. Tomorrow night, we are meeting with Dustin (apartment manager & realtor) to go over the whole process. Yay!

Report

I will miss Peter Jennings.
I have been using Blogger since 2002. Over 3 years of blabber. How about that?
I played on a jetski today and was afraid to go too fast. I am wimpy. I also wore the mega sunscreen since I am also afraid of skin cancer. This is not wimpy, but is me being cautious for a good reason.
I bought us a bedspread for our bed on Friday so our bedroom looks more "finished". It matches the color of our sheets perfectly. I made a good guess!
We looked at a house on Friday because it has a great yard. We fell in love with the yard, but not the house. We may consider buying sooner than later. First, we need to talk to a mortgage lender before we start seriously looking. It sure does help that our apartment manager is also a Realtor.

Almost every day, i think about how lucky & fortunate I am to have so many wonderful people in my life. Many are too far away, but I still feel lucky that we still are in touch.

My second home

We are all moved in to the new office. I worked a 12.5 hour day on Friday since the movers showed up with a too-small truck and it took them 11 hours to move all of the office furniture. ugh. But it's done! And that is good news, folks. After being at the old office all day on Friday supervising the sweaty men, I took off to the new office after they left with the second load. As soon as I walk in the door, Eric starts complaining about his office. I was a bit aghast since he was the one who chose not to give any input and pretty much said he didn't care. I essentially said that we weren't even going to think about making any changes right now since we just moved in. It made him mad, but jeez! give me a break, guy! I fretted about it a bit this weekend, but all was good by today. I think he realized that he was being a dummy.

Other than that, everyone else loves the place and is very happy. however, Friday was a day where I really needed to be in two places at once. It was a little stressful at the new office since no one was stepping up and making sure things got done. According to Tony, everyone was just wandering around as if they were lost and forgot they had jobs to do. After getting annoyed by everyone, Tony decided to start directing people into getting stuff done even though he doesn't like to take the leadership role. After telling Ralph what happened on Friday, Ralph has decided to officially announce to everyone that when he's gone, i'm boss. We'll see how that goes.

i was pretty pooped after leaving work at 9:30pm on Friday. Tony was a sweetie and stuck around with me until the movers were done. We drove back to the city and then tooled on over to Chris' to hang out for a bit.

Saturday, i dragged myself out of bed to go get poked by needles. Afterwards, i scooted to Target to try and find camping chairs for tony & I. I just wasn't impressed with the selection. I scooted on back home and then Chris came to pick us up and we went out to brunch. I spend the afternoon napping and being lazy. Tony & I then went to a fabulous restaurant to celebrate our 2-year anniversary. yay!

Sunday, we went over to Chris' house again to watch The Blue Angels fly around Lake Washington for the close of SeaFair. It was loud and full of testosterone. After the show ended, T & I went into the office to do some unpacking and organizing so things would be nice-looking and functional for everyone when they got in in the morning. We then headed back to the city to meet up with Julie, Natalie, Chris and Sol for dinner at Jai Thai. Mmmm!

That was my weekend in a nutshell. I am tired.

Spittle

Work = sooper busy getting ready for the move. Ralph fired our CTO on Monday. Ralph just told me today that I'm getting another raise. I think I've gotten 4 raises in the 9 months I've worked here. Go me!

Home = sooper productive this last weekend. Did lots of cleaning at home on Saturday and then went over to Julie's house on Sunday to help her clean. She's preparing to put her house on the market.

Family = Cameron's first birthday was Sunday but he & Jenn were out when I called :(
Jenn, I'm worried about you since I haven't heard back from you yet. I will give you another ring tonight after Cameron is put to bed.

OK, must get to work!

The Grind

Office move: was meant to be this Friday but has been pushed back until next Friday due to things beyond my control. Yes, I am irked by these things. Today, Tony & I got up early to get to the new office by 8 for the delivery of our new furniture. They didn't show up until 9:15. The new stuff looks great and it makes me very happy. My Very Own Office has a view of downtown Bellevue & the top of Mt. Rainier. Big Windows! Privacy! Yay!

Work Busy. Must go. sooo much to do and not enough time!

Back from the woods

We awoke to rain Friday morning as did Eric & Cathy. We were still at home while they were in the woods trying to keep the important stuff dry. Fortunately, the rain only stuck around for Friday morning. Unfortunately, it brought about mosquitoes.

We left work early on Friday and took off from the house around 4:30. It took us 3 hours to get out to the campsite due to bad traffic. Friday night, we had a feast of marinated salmon and corn on the cob while swatting at the bugs that make you itch. After dinner, we took a walk down to Baker Lake and enjoyed the clear skies and mountains while sitting on the floating dock.

Saturday, I awoke before everyone else so i took a little walk down to the creek and then to the lake to take some pictures. By the time I got back, Cathy was up so we cleaned up from the night before and waiting until Eric & Tony got up before making breakfast burritos. After eating, we ventured off in the car to locate Rainbow Falls. According to the book, it was supposed to be some fantastic falls. We drove up to the site and couldn't find the waterfall or a trailhead. Granted, the view was fabulous, but the lack of falls was disappointing. After venturing around a bit, we found a trailhead and started hiking up. The trail went up and up and up and it felt like it would never end. Keep in mind that we were hiking in moist dirt & mud...let's just say we broke in our new hiking boots. After it got really steep and we didn't encounter the waterfall, we turned around. After reading the book again, we realized that the waterfall was so far away that we could only enjoy it using binoculars. We drove back to the campsite and I think we walked to Baker Lake again to check out other hikes. After getting back, we had halibut, baked potatoes and roasted vegetables for dinner. Before and after dinner, we enjoyed playing Yatzee! and Uno! After the games, we went back to Baker Lake to watch the Moon rise over the mountains. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Sunday, we all slept in. It really is nice waking to the noise of a rushing creek. After getting out of tent, we made some breakfast, packed up camp and headed back to Baker Lake to rent a boat. The plan didn't work out and we have now noted that we should plan/reserver a boat the day before we want to go out on the lake. After we found that we couldn't rent a boat, we decided to hang out by the lake until we decided what we would do. While sitting under the trees, we all notice that there is a hornet's nest above us. A second after, Eric gets stung on the face. Ack! Fortunately, we found out that he is not allergic to hornets. That was a sign for us to leave Baker Lake. We drove up to hike to Blue Lake where we were attacked by black flies. This weekend was filled with bugs! It reminded me of Florida. After the hike, we headed back to Seattle.

Tony put up most of the pictures here. I took pictures of the creek, but those were left out. It's likely we'll camp here again next year.

This weekend was lots of fun. We are now organizing our next camping trip for labor day weekend.

I love living in the PNW.

Too much to do

Hello!

Work has been busy as usual. We've been busy after work mostly every night. This weekend, we are going camping by Lake Baker and will be hiking to see waterfalls. I haven't been camping in forever! We finally bought hiking boots and I hope just having them around will inspire us to do day hikes on the weekend. We are leaving right after work tomorrow; Cathy & Eric went out to the campsite this evening. It's been too long since we've been out of the city!

In other news, Cameron is officially a Toddler and will be turning one next week!

The other thing

I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago for my physical. I heard back on Monday that my test results came back wonky for my thyroid and she upped my dosage. I was glad to know that my tiredness wasn't in my head. Previously, when I felt like crap, I wanted to say that something might be off with my dosage, but then worried that it really was just my imagination and I just needed to sleep/eat better/exercise. I have noticed a difference this week. I'm also documenting how I feel after I eat. Apparently, it's not good to eat soy if you have thyroid disease. I've been trying to cut back but it is so freaking hard since soy is in so much of my diet. The other day, I had some roasted soy beans for a snack and then couldn't stop yawning for an hour afterwards. I know a couple of people that experience the same symptom when they eat anything with soybeans in it.

It makes me sad. I love my soy products :(

We hired a new CTO (chief technical officer) at work and no one is quite sure how they feel about him. The guy is full of knowledge, but he's a little high strung and brings this frantic energy with him to work. How long should you give someone before you can tell if he is a good fit in the company? Work has been super busy this week, but that's nothing new.

I sure do hope Jenn & Cameron are having fun with Mom in hot, hot Naples!

Thank you!

Betsyroo! Thank you for the gifty :D I happened to be wearing my T-shirt with a graphic by the same artist the day it came in the mail. How funny is that?

My back has been in bad shape this week. uck. I believe I've been sleeping in poor positions lately and my back muscles have been spasming. I need to concentrate on strengthening it.

Last night, we went over to Cathy & Eric's house to plan our camping trip. I'm excited! So many of the prime spots were already reserved, but we did finally find one by a creek.

Tomorrow night is our second night of our Intro to Wine class. It's fun and we are learning a lot, but it sure is hard tasting so many wines in a short period of time.

If my back is feeling better, i hope to get Tony out of the house to go kayaking on Saturday. Sunday, i'm going thrift shopping with Sandi & Stine in hopes to find some summer clothes.

Hello!

Where have I been? I don't know!

Let us see...

Um...

Well...

Here's some pictures from the party at Chris' house.

July 4th weekend...Friday, we went to Bleu Bistro for dinner and then hung out with Chris & Natalie. Saturday, I was laid up with a headache all day. That night, we stayed home and watched movies. Sunday, we went to Sunny's for lakeside hanging out fun. Monday, we did a bit of shopping at REI before going to Solomon's for hanging out fun and fireworks.

Later this month, we are going camping with Eric & Cathy. Lots of camping stuff to buy!

We've been busy going out and doin' stuff. Right now, I be hungry for dinner, but Tony is taking a nap. i think i must eat without him!

Happy Summer

We started our summer off right with cool weather and rain. I love Seattle!
Tony & I went to the Home Depot yesterday to pick up some soil, pots and a few plants. We replanted a few things and Tony set up a terrarium. When we stopped by Walgreens the other night, he picked up a venus flytrap and thought it would grow best in that environment.

Wow. How unexciting is that?

Miss Betsyroo! I miss you! Come visit soon :D I will call you this weekend.

Mum, I plan to give you a ring, too.

Screech gets to go to the vet this weekend for a check-up and to get his cough checked out. He was coughing lots and then after I made the appointment, he stopped. Typical. Chris is having a beginning of summer party saturday. Fun will be had!

Eat, Drink and Be Merry

Happy Day-After-Father's Day!

My weekend was :( and then :)
While at work on Friday, a headache crept up on me. The Advil did nothing. It hurt. It made me nauseous. After dinner, I took an Advil Cold & Sinus thinking that it might be my sinuses. Alas, the headache did not go away. I felt like poo, so I stayed home while Tony went to Natalie's for hanging out fun.

Saturday morning, my head was still hurting slightly but was not horrendous. Natalie came over and she, Tony and I went to The Globe for brunch. It's a vegan hippy dive down the street from us. Holy cow. It took an hour to get our food! We had to shove it down our throats since I had book club to go to. I hung out with my book club girlfriends for a few hours before heading home. Tony & I then went to see Batman Begins. It was good! Afterwards, Natalie & Amanda came over for hanging-out fun. My headache did finally go away around midday after I took an Aleve.

After making brunch on Sunday, I headed out to pick up Stine & Sandi for thrift shopping. I scored on some cute shoes and other items. We also had lunch and chatted for a bit. Fun day! I finally made it home around 7:30pm. Tony & I had some dinner and watched a depressing documentary called Children Underground.

Work is a'callin. Gotta run!