Christmas in review!

Alright already, here's the recap. :-)

Sunday (the 21st): Anxiously watched the news and the airport website all day (couldn't go to church because they were ALL CANCELLED - for the second week in a row). Essentially every flight was cancelled. I think there may have been 12 that took off that day. In good news, there are 4 non stops to Dallas on American Airlines daily (the ONLY flights that American flies out of PDX) - and 2 of them actually flew (late, but whatever... they left Portland). Got a call about 9 PM that we needed to go down to Sheridan (about an hour or so south of where we live) and rescue Geoff's uncle and cousin who were stuck on their farm. Got home around 2 AM and went to bed around 2:30 AM.

Monday: Left for the airport like 4 hours before our flight (which was showing on-time, a good sign). It took about an hour to get there, which wasn't bad at all. Again, since American only has 4 flights a day, it only took us about 5 or 10 minutes to get our bags (okay, one bag and one cardboard box... we are classy) checked. Southwest, United, Alaska, and Northwest all had lines winding around the entire airport - literally, they were winding around the check-in area up and around through the security line and then back and around and even OUTSIDE. So then it was on to security. We got in line and then Geoff said "I don't think this is security... I think this is the line for Alaska". So he did some investigation, and sure enough, it was the Alaska line. There WAS NO SECURITY LINE because no one was going anywhere. So we casually walked through security and headed to our gate. Definitely didn't need to be there early! We had a 12:55 PM flight and the 9:30 AM flight was at the gate next to us just chillin'... oh well. Around 11:30 they put them (the 9:30 peeps) all on the airplane, de-iced them, and said they'd leave the instant the Port of Portland opened the runway. To their credit, the Port WAS working very hard - in the first picture below you can see these guys trying to put CHAINS on a luggage conveyor belt... I thought that was hilarious. And in the second picture you may be able to make out THREE plows and graveling trucks out on the runway (there was a fourth that wasn't in the picture). But the snow just kept falling and they couldn't keep up. So the 9:30 people were all on the plane ready to go... and the Port decided they weren't going to open the runway. They kept all of those poor people on the plane and told us that our flight would be leaving around 2:15 PM, when the Port said they were going to open the runway. Geoff went to go find us some lunch around 1... and about 5 or 10 minutes after he walked away they called all of the flight attendants back to our gate and then said "alright everyone, the Port is opening the runways, so get on as fast as you can so we can get out of here when they do!" Geoff had heard them call the flight attendants back so he was already on his way back when I called him (sans lunch) and we loaded up. They said because of the slush on the runway they had large weight restrictions so it was either people or fuel they had to sacrifice - since it doesn't make much since to fly an empty plane nonstop to Dallas, they chose to take off with minimal fuel and make our "nonstop" a direct by putting us down in Reno and filling us up. The fine people on the 9:30 flight (who had been sitting on their plane since 11:30) left about 30 minutes before us, around 1:30, and we left about 2. After a quick stop in Reno, we were 3 or 4 hours late arriving to Dallas, but we didn't care in the slightest! We were so glad we made it. :-) (and there were over 100 cancelled flights on Monday too!)

Tuesday: Slept late and then did some shopping. I seem to not remember this morning very well... my mom had a doctor's appointment and my sister, Geoff, and I all woke up while she was gone. I had oatmeal for breakfast. We went to Costco and Walmart for some groceries, then came home and started making stuffed shells for dinner with my aunt, uncle, and grandmother. They came over about 6:30 and we had a nice night visiting with them.

Wednesday: Geoff and I did some errands on our own... we went to Walmart again and several other stores. We needed to get a few last minute things for dinner and were looking for a secret gift that we had just thought of (we never did find it... several stores carried it but were out of it). We also stopped by my aunt and uncles to get some fresh rosemary for our prime rib on Christmas night (my aunt grows it). We went to the 7 PM church service and saw the pastor who married us. She is so cute... she SCREAMS with excitement every time she sees us. We love her. Then we had Honeybaked Ham for dinner... yummmmmmm.... :) Then Geoff put the rub onto the prime rib (actually I think he did that BEFORE church) and got it all ready to go.

Thursday: I got up early (after I went to bed at 1 and got up at 4 and 6 to "moisten" the prime rib) and tried to convince Geoff to go for a walk with me, but he was too sleepy! So I asked my dad instead! I wanted to see if Starbucks was open, but they were not. But Albertsons WAS open, which was good because I needed a meat thermometer. The prime rib has to be cooked to a pretty specific temperature, and my mom's meat thermometer wasn't accurate enough. So I got that. The walk was so fun - we only saw about 3 cars the entire time, and EVERY car waved to us! WAVED! From a car!! AND when we were waiting to cross a street (waiting for the light to change), a car came up to the GREEN LIGHT, and stopped and waved us across. On a major street! It was so awesome! I couldn't believe it. By the time we got back the rest of the family was mostly up and so we opened presents! Lots of fun things... the best part was probably a trowel. I think it was gifted to me by my sister. Geoff and I are planning a backpacking trip for our anniversary this year (have I mentioned that?) so we are starting to collect the items we need for it. And who DOESN'T want a trowel for Christmas? We both got lots of great backpacking gear... plus cooking stuff (including several PINK SPARKLY SPATULAS!!!!!!!) and Riedel glasses and tons of other goodness! Then we had our traditional Christmas breakfast casserole... yummmm... and then got the beef in the oven! My mom has only one oven and was worried about timing everything, but I knew it would turn out alright. The only problem was that we were doing twice baked potatoes, and they don't get that firm outside without being cooked in the oven on high temperature. So we had them in the oven pretty much all day but they never got super crispy. But they still worked out alright! The prime rib was DELICIOUS, as was everything else, and everything was timed pretty well. We had my aunt and uncle and grandmother over again and had a lovely Christmas evening.

Friday: SHOPPING! Well, first I went on another walk with my dad. Then we (sans Dad) went all over the place to do some shopping and found quite a few excellent items. We also went to REI to get iodine tablets and deet for my sister who is going to Cambodia/Thailand/Vietnam in January. I heart REI. And it was PACKED! We also went to Target where Geoff and I found the secret gift we'd been looking for before - a new remote control for my parents, who always seem to have remote issues. We took a quick break at my parent's house since we had so many leftovers to eat, then we went up to Allen (a little north of Plano, which is north of Dallas) to their outlet mall... it was GREAT! There was a Columbia store which was like a goldmine... I got a new running shirt and a new fleece, and Geoff got a new waterproof breathable jacket (which was on his backpacking gear list). We got to the Coach outlet and there was a line... TO GET IN THE STORE. Yes, seriously, a line of about 75 people waiting to get in. Of course we waited in it. :-) It actually went quite quickly, but there wasn't anything we couldn't live without in the store. There was also a Le Creuset store which was really cool! They were having a 25% off over $25 sale, and they also had Riedel glasses. The Riedel set that I had received for Christmas was actually too long to pack in our suitcase, so we exchanged it for a set at the Le Creuset store that was shorter (I know, strange). We looked at the Samsonite store since my suitcase that I got at KMart my sophomore year of high school for a band trip has seen better days... but they were still super expensive (they had a bag very similar to one that they sell at Costco for $100 that was $215. And the one at Costco is Samsonite too!). That about sums up our shopping trip... and by the time we got home, my dad was sick. :-( We had been planning to head to Houston the next day and he just thought there was no way he was going to be able to go, but said he'd decide in the morning. Oh, and we had fondue for dinner... yum!

Saturday: Got up early and headed to Houston! Our first stop - Spec's Liquor Warehouse. Now, like all of you, I'm pretty sure Geoff was thinking "we're driving 4 hours each way, and we're going to have about 6 or 7 hours actually IN Houston. Why are we spending part of that time at a liquor store?" And then he actually set foot in the store. I have been there once, and it is the most magnificent wonderful place. The FIRST thing we saw was an ENTIRE AISLE of Riedel glasses! We were both in awe... Williams Sonoma has a lot of Riedel glasses, but they have about 20% of what Spec's had. Spec's had all sorts of crazy glasses... about 50% of which we'd never even seen or heard of before. They had black ones (which we had seen) which are meant for tasting parties. And they had TINTED glasses, one "party" set of pink/yellow/green/blue tint, and one set of just pink tinted glasses. Plus just all sorts of other types within various Riedel lines. We drooled but did not purchase anything. They also have a fantastic fine foods - cheeses and meats and mustard and who knows what else. I tried a glass of champagne with an edible flower in it - the flower tasted like a cherry (okay, I didn't taste it, but my sister did). We walked up and down the aisles of liquor and then got the aisles of wine... Geoff found an $800 bottle of wine! They just have an unbelievable selection of everything. We got a couple of things - including two tiny bottles for Geoff's bottle collection. Okay. Enough about liquor! Then we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch - ew. We've been there before, but they seemed to have one guy who was the host/bartender/server for the entire place - very short staffed. So we had to wait forever and lunch just wasn't that good. Very disappointing. After lunch we headed to Mimi and Gaggy's to see Mimi and pick up Gaggy to take him to my aunt and uncle's for a visit. We had a GREAT time there - we got to see my mom's brother and his wife plus all 3 of their kids, plus another one of my uncle's and his son (his wife, my mom's sister, passed away last year). It was so much fun, we haven't all been together in a couple of years (other than briefly at my aunt's funeral and at our wedding). We had a great time visiting and laughing. Then it was time to head back up to Dallas.

Sunday: We all slept really late and then did a little bit more shopping... we also visited my aunt, uncle, and grandmother one more time and then went out for Mexican food (goooood Mexican food!) And I got to have my beloved Steak N Shake cheese fries... don't ask me why I like these, but it dates back to Christmas Conference in Indianapolis my sophomore year of college, the first time I ever went to Steak N Shake. YUM. And speaking of Christmas Conference, my youngest cousin is headed to the southwest region's comparable Winter Conference in Dallas tomorrow. I'm so excited for her!

Monday: Got up early for our flight and headed to the airport - again, check in and security was super quick. American Airlines will be hearing from me... this was by far the best Christmastime flight experience I've had, in both directions! My family and I have definitely had terrible experiences in the past (which American has heard about too), but this was outstanding. So incredibly pleased. Geoff's mom picked us up from the airport and that ended our Christmas adventure!

Why can't my blogs be short and sweet like normal people?

Kelly: Longest blog EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Patrick: wow thats like a novel
Kelly: I know.
Why can't I write short stuff like normal people?
Patrick: ha i wasnt mocking
gives me something to read
since i dont read books like a normal person
Kelly: LOL

Tough break

Well it's been an interesting couple of days!

Saturday Geoff's brother Trevor got home from college so we were planning to go visit with him and his parents on Sunday. Snow was predicted for the weekend, but Saturday was beautiful and so was Sunday morning when we woke up. It started snowing about 9ish? at which point we turned on the news and heard the standard Portland once-a-year snowfall story about people are cold, stay off the roads, etc. We did look online and saw that the 6 PM church service (that we were planning on going to) had been cancelled - so had the 11 AM by that point. We then dragged ourselves out of bed and went to the gym. We ran 7 miles as we watched the snow pick up a little and by the time we'd finished up, showered, and headed to Geoff's parents it was definitely coming down. We spent the afternoon chatting and about 4:30 I commented to Geoff that we should head out before it got dark - but for whatever reason, we decided not to. About 5:30 we all decided to go to a movie. So we got in our car (we had the Tahoe) and Geoff's parents got in their car and we headed out. Just a block or two from the theatre, Geoff braked before a stoplight and just didn't stop. We slid quite a distance... right into a Toyota Tercel. No one was injured and the Tahoe actually came out without a scratch. The Tercel didn't fare as well, but I think it was mostly just bumper damage that looked bad. The driver was very kind, we exchanged information and headed on our way. We skipped the movie and instead headed carefully home. It obviously could have been a lot worse, but it was still an unfortunate situation.

Monday we decided not to go into work (the snow all turned to ice by Sunday night and the roads were all literally just ice rinks... they don't believe in snow plows or salt here like normal people... hurts the salmon). My whole group was out except for one guy. He decided to come in, and told me today that he was one of very few people in the building - the cafeteria was a ghost town even at noon he said! He went home around noon. I just stayed online and worked from home, plus got tons done around the house. I made two meals (used up several things from the freezer which was great) and did 4 loads of laundry, plus cleaned out a closet and packed up a bunch of stuff from Goodwill. That is one thing I love about working from home - I tend to get so much more done, work-wise and home-wise (I know it sounds like all I was doing was stuff around the house, but I was doing work too, plus worked way longer than my normal work hours. It just feels easier because you can keep switching off).

Today we got up and made the slow trek into work. Actually, Monday afternoon was quite sunny which helped some of the ice go away! So this morning wasn't too bad and we got caught up at work. Geoff and I had lunch in the cafe and when I got back to my desk I had a voicemail. I checked it right away (shockingly, I never do that) and it was our realtor. He said - there's a problem... call me back ASAP, I'm going to call your cell phone and Geoff's cell phone too. So as I was reaching to call him, Geoff IMed me and said "got a call from the realtor, need to leave now, I arranged for job coverage for this afternoon, a pipe burst and I need to go home to fix it". He asked me to go with him, so I cleared my afternoon schedule and got ready to go. Our neighbor actually saw the problem and called our realtor to get in touch with us quickly. We had to drive home painfully slowly - it's still icy out and we didn't need another accident! When we got home our neighbors were standing in the driveway - we thanked them PROFUSELY. The neighbor across the street (who we know, but not very well) heard water and walked around looking for it. She saw water coming out of our garage so she asked our next door neighbor if she had our number. She just got a new phone so she didn't, but thought to call our realtor! GREAT NEIGHBORS. She also called the water district who had already been out to shut off our water line (which is way out of the way - on the other side of a fence... hard to explain with the way our house is set up, but it's really annoying). So thankful. So we opened up the garage... not nearly as bad as either of us were expecting. About 1/4 of our garage was WET... every single one of the tools in our tool chest was soaked, Geoff's golf clubs, etc... but nothing horrible. We had the extra seats from the Tahoe in there, extra paper towels / laundry detergent / etc. - several things like that, and it was all dry dry dry! Geoff went upstairs - nothing was wet there! The pipe that burst was the one that went out to the hose in the front yard, so our neighbor showed us how to shut it off. I remember the previous owner showing me where to shut that off and telling me he did it every winter, but I haven't done it ever and this is my 4th winter in this house - stupid, stupid me. There is also one to the backyard hose that I've never shut off - I showed Geoff where that was and we shut that one off too. Turns out three of our other neighbors have had this exact same pipe burst in the past couple of years, including the neighbor who originally found ours. The other three neighbors have one story houses though and the water guy says he very rarely sees it on the two story houses (ours is 2). Anyway! So we got that shut off, and Geoff called the water guy to come back and turn on the water (you need a special tool to do it). Then he started hacking at drywall. :) Cut a chunk out and found the hole immediately - it was quite large!! At this point we called his stepdad, who is good at these sorts of things. He said he'd come over to help but that it was going to be a bit because he was finishing up something. So we started working on drying - we dried out all of the tools (put them on towels in the family room), wet vacced the floors and walls, got things outside to dry, I ran to the camper to get a couple of space heaters we had in there, etc. Gary got here about 3ish and had brought Trevor and his girlfriend Kristy. He gave his professional assessment and then we all headed off to Home Depot for copper pipe, drywall, etc. They make these super cool things now that allow you to connect two pieces of copper pipe without having to solder! Exciting since we were up near wood, insulation, etc - all sorts of fun flammable things. Not to mention the whole part it about it being WAY EASIER. So we got back and Geoff cut out the bad piece of pipe - and the connector thingy wasn't big enough. UGH. Another trip to Home Depot! HD seems to almost always come in two's - the first time to get what you think you need, then another time to get what you ACTUALLY need after you realize the first stuff just isn't quite right or you need more or whatever. I always anticipate this and try to really think through all of what we might need, but it just never works. So anyway, since we were going back, Gary mentioned the drywall, and that there were some more pieces we might want to replace since they could get moldy. Geoff cut a hole out of one - and it just crumbled into grossness. So we tore down several sheets and then headed back to HD. Gary had his big work truck which was awesome because it fit the drywall easily! So we got back and plugged in the second connector we bought (the idea was to cut another piece of pipe out and connect that to the main pipe with a connector on either side) and it STILL wasn't big enough!!! Well we occasionally borrow things from our next door neighbor and this had come up in conversation earlier, so Gary suggested going over there to see if they happened to have some copper pipe. Geoff did that, and they didn't have any but the other neighbor (the one who originally discovered our problem and who had the same problem) DID! Our neighbor has yet to fail us on needing any tool type thing that we need, and even in this case he could recommend someone who had some. So we fixed that and tested it out and were good to go. We got everything all back in the garage, re-aimed all of the fans and heaters, and left it to dry until the weekend, when we will drywall it. We through a load of laundry in and then went to Kmart (since they have Craftsman stuff now) to buy new liners for the tool chest (ours were all wet and gross so we threw them away). I relined the tool chest and put away all of the tools (I will NEVER complain about organizing) while Geoff did some things inside. I also really wanted to put Jake in the garage, so I very carefully managed to get everything back in it's original position against the wall. :-) It worked fine, and I still even have the heaters and fans set up! Plus it's cleaner that way, and I sleep better when things are clean. I'm a freak, I know. So we're all set for now - and again, it could have been way, way, way worse. Minimal impact and all contained in the garage, plus it was a nice sunny day!

Things I am thankful for:
- fantastic neighbors (next door Christie and Gary, across the street Brett and Joy)
- Gary, Trevor, and Kristy
- towels. yes this is odd, but when I moved to Oregon I had 4 bath towels, 4 hand towels, and 2 washcloths. They were two sets, one I think was from high school that was still at my parent's house and I grabbed before I moved, and one was from college. I still have them all. I bought a set of blue and a set of yellow for the guest bathroom in my apartment - it had a yellow and blue theme. I still have those, and they are the SMALLEST bath towels ever. I do use them at the gym though, they're small and compact. Then a couple of years ago, a friend was having a garage sale and had all of these towels she wanted to get rid of, so she gave me some. I remember being SO excited because I seemed to always need "dirty towels" (this was right after I moved into my house and I never had enough). Then I married Geoff - this was a double towel bonus, because he came with towels PLUS we received towels as a wedding gift. Then we purchased the camper, and Momlie provided us with some towels to put in the camper. Many of those live in the camper, but at any given time a lot of them are at our house because they've been brought home to be laundered and then they live in the "take to the camper" bag until we actually go to the camper. So I was SO excited to have an occasion to use all of my towels acquried from many fabulous different sources... all of whom hold special places in my heart. Yes, I'm a freak. This we know.

I miss the rain.

2 quick funnies

Ever since I've had Jake, the thermometer switches into Celsius every so often (couple times a week). I usually look up, see that it says 7 degrees, and switch it back to Fahrenheit. This morning I looked up and it said 20 degrees. I reached up to change it... and realized it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit!!! Definitely not used to that in Oregon. :-) It's kinda fun! I'm glad I'm not walking to class a mile away on the lakefront anymore, but it's a nice little blast from the past.

And now I'd like to share a couple of pictures of Geoff in an -20 degree rated sleeping bag at REI. The REI guy dared him to stay in there for 30 minutes... he lasted about 2!

Haha - it gets better!

So tonight my sister and I were talking about the TV quiz from last night. I notice it was called "TV Sitcoms 2" so I google looking for #1. Turns out there are sitcoms and dramas and movies and lots more, oh my!!!! So now Christine, Patrick, Geoff, and I are all having fun doing Sitcoms 1. HIGHLY recommended! The best part is - 3 of the ones I guessed yesterday (Mr. Belvedere, Perfect Strangers, and The Adams Family) are on there. Hehehehe!

By the way, these quizzes are all at: http://www.theidquiz.net/

Sitcom Drama!

Patrick sent me a little TV show quiz and said he got 49 / 50 right. The game was tiny pictures of a still shot of a particular show and you had to come up with the title of the show. I got 11 / 50 (ALF, MASH, I Love Lucy, Will and Grace, Growing Pains, Friends, Who's the Boss, Mad About You, Saved By the Bell, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Murphy Brown). Then I asked Geoff for help. He immediately got Two and a Half Men, Frasier, Third Rock From the Sun, That 70's Show, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire (I tried to get that but I didn't put THE).

So here's where it starts getting a little ridiculous. I try to think back to my childhood and remember shows my mom would have on - Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, etc. There were several shows with black families on there, so I kept yelling "227!!!" "Different Strokes!!!" I remember watching 227 a time or two when I was younger, but I don't ever remember seeing Different Strokes. Geoff, youngin' that he is, doesn't remember either. Then I saw who I SWEAR was Archie Bunker from All In the Family, but it wasn't. Geoff googles "sitcom with two black kids" and it comes up with Diff'rent Strokes... I of course yell "Different Strokes!!!" again, and Geoff was like "get over it already!" But I pointed out that it SAID Different Strokes... so we put that in and it was RIGHT! Does the guy from Diff'rent Strokes look like Archie? Then Geoff gets all google happy and googles "sitcom in the navy" for McHale's Navy which he claims to have heard of, "sitcom with George" for The George Lopez Show, which he also claims to have heard of, and sitcom with USMC for Gomer Pyle which neither of us have ever heard of. I somehow come up with Coach just on my own, and Geoff says "who's that guy stuck on the island?" and I say "Gilliagan?" and he gets "Gilligan's Island". And since I had mentioned Taxi, Geoff somehow identifies the people from Taxi (I thought they were Three's Company) so we got that one too. We're up to 23/50. WITH Google and the two of us combined, we're still not half what Patrick got.

Here are some that we have WRONG (what we guessed which is the WRONG answer and what the picture looks like) - edited later to add in the real answer now that Patrick sent me answers!

Donnie and Marie - no idea what this one could be, that was my guess but it's wrong. Two people that look SUPER happy and are sort of posed together but not in any setting. Looks like an American flag behind them. - this is Bewitched

Different Strokes - A black family, looks like a mom and a dad, maybe an aunt or a much older sister, and 4 kids. - this is Moesha

Mr. Belvedere - A man with glasses and a guy sipping coffee in a radio studio. - this is WKRP in Cincinnati

227 - Two black men standing next to each other - this is Good Times

Growing Pains - Two white boys (okay, one may be a girl) that are sort of hugging in front of a railroad crossing sign. - this is Silver Spoons

Prefect Strangers - A guy who I swear is Balki (Geoff says "who's Balki?") sitting on a couch talking to another dude. - this is Three's Company

Law and Order - 3 guys, 2 sitting on a red couch and one sitting on the arm of the couch. This is definitely a current show, but I can't identify it. - this is Entourage

The Adams Family - Geoff says "who are these Frankenstein looking people?" and I say "the Adams Family?" but that's not right. There is one normal looking woman in pink and 4 freak looking men/boys. All in front of a Model T lookin' car. - this is Munsters

Barney Miller - 2 guys in suits (one a uniform type thing) in front of encyclopedias. - this is Night Court

227 - Yes, again. Mom, Dad, and 5 kids? - this is A Different World

Taxi - I also guessed The Mary Tyler Moore show for this. Two women, one with red hair and one with long blonde hair. - this is One Day at A Time

227 - Times 3! 2 black teenagers and 1 white teenager in a school setting. - this is Welcome Back Kotter

Reba - A redheaded woman, a black man, and 2 other white women. - this is Designing Women

Seinfeld - Geoff guessed this, I knew it wasn't that, but it's also at school - an adult holding a baseball with 4 students around him. - this is Head of the Class

Hope you've enjoyed some laughter at my expense, epecially hearing what I think about some of the shows and then what they REALLY were!

A note of clarification, I am not trying to say that I think every African American family looks the same. I can just think of only a few black sitcoms, so I kept trying those.

Hey, this is my 500th post ever. YAY! :)

Tuesday

Yesterday I ran 6 miles with Kristie after work. Today I feel quite good! Because of previously mentioned worthless weekend, I never did get in a run this weekend, so I had to make up for it yesterday. Half marathon is only 5 and a half weeks away! Geoff wanted to join us, but ended up having to work late which was a huge bummer.

Guess we can forget camping this weekend!

I'm not afraid of camping in the snow, but the part about "wrapping your pipes" reminds me of last Thanksgiving when we were camping and woke up to find that we couldn't use any water in our trailer. Plus we couldn't even pack up to go home because the hose was frozen to the camper and to the spicket. Yeah, gonna avoid camping this weekend! But I DO need to make summer reservations... Oregon state parks fill up SO quickly!

Issued by The National Weather ServicePortland, OR 1:05 pm PST, Mon., Dec. 8, 2008
... TURNING EXTREMELY COLD WITH VERY LOW SNOW LEVELS THIS WEEKEND OVER SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON...
THE COLDEST AIR OF THE WINTER SEASON WILL BE SETTLING IN OVER SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON THIS WEEKEND... BRINGING VERY COLD TEMPERATURES TO THE REGION AND SNOW LEVELS POSSIBLY NEAR THE VALLEY FLOOR.
THE INITIAL SURGE OF COLD AIR WILL SPREAD INTO SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON FRIDAY NIGHT AS A STRONG COLD FRONT MOVES THROUGH. WHILE AIR AHEAD OF THIS FRONT WILL BE RELATIVELY MILD... VERY COLD AIR BEHIND THIS FRONT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO DROP SNOW LEVELS QUITE LOW... NOT UNLIKE A SNOW EVENT THAT OCCURRED IN MID NOVEMBER OF 2003 WHICH DROPPED SEVERAL INCHES OF SNOW IN THE PORTLAND METRO AREA. WHILE THIS KIND OF DETAIL IS NOT CERTAIN AT THIS POINT... THE SNOW LEVEL AT THE BACK EDGE OF THE COLD FRONT FRIDAY NIGHT COULD TURN OUT TO BE QUITE LOW.
THE COLD AIR WILL CONTINUE TO STREAM ONSHORE DURING THE DAY SATURDAY AND ANY SHOWERS WILL LIKELY DROP SNOW TO THE 500 OR 1000 FEET ELEVATIONS. THE ONSHORE FLOW WILL LIKELY LIMIT THE POSSIBILITY OF THE SNOW REACHING THE VALLEY FLOOR DUE TO A SIGNIFICANT OVER WATER TRAJECTORY OF THE AIR... AS THE WATER TEMPERATURES OFF THE COAST REMAIN IN THE LOWER 50S.
IT APPEARS A REINFORCING SHOT OF ARCTIC AIR WILL THEN SPREAD THROUGH THE GORGE AND DOWN THROUGH WESTERN WASHINGTON INTO NORTHWEST OREGON SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY... AND BRING THE COLDEST AIR TO THE REGION IN QUITE SOME TIME. AT THAT POINT... MINIMUM TEMPERATURES COULD FALL INTO THE TEENS WITH DAYTIME TEMPERATURES STRUGGLING TO REACH FREEZING. THE POSSIBILITY OF ANY SIGNIFICANT SNOW ONCE THE MAIN SHOT OF ARCTIC REACHES OUR AREA IS UNCERTAIN AT THIS TIME AS IT IS DEPENDENT ON WHETHER ANY ORGANIZED SYSTEMS WILL SPREAD OVER THE AREA... BUT THE POSSIBILITY DOES EXIST.
BE SURE TO TAKE PRECAUTIONS THIS WEEK IN ADVANCE OF THE ARRIVAL OF THE VERY COLD AIR... SUCH AS WRAPPING PIPES... COVERING FOUNDATION VENTS... DRAINING OUTDOOR WATER PIPES... AND PROTECTING VULNERABLE OUTDOOR PLANTS.

Camping

Geoff and I are thinking about going camping this Saturday night, just a quick one-nighter. At the local state park we like to go to, winter camping with full hookups is $18 a night. However, there is a reservation fee of $6! So usually in the winter I like to avoid making reservations... who camps in the winter? Not that it's that empty, but there is usually at least a spot or two available. One day this will probably come back to bite me, but for now, I'm going to keep playing with fire...

Last night Tiffany and I went to a Big Ten Holiday Charity Bash. The bash was a bust. :( It was advertised as all you can eat with a flight of beers at one of my favorite breweries in town. Awesome we thought! But the food selection was limited - tortilla roll ups, a cheese/salami/olive tray, meatballs, chicken skewers, and sausage. Not so much all you can eat... especially since they'd only had half as many people last year so they quickly ran out of food. They brought more in but it was about an hour later. And the company was... interesting. I knew 2 or 3 people from my own alumni association, but really, a lot of Northwestern alumni are a little odd. And Tiffany was the only OSU person there, so we sat at a table with some Illinois and Indiana people. Anyway, it was a fine evening and we had a good time people watching, but we won't be back next year!

9 more blogs!

I have to write 9 more blogs this year to surpass my number of blogs from last year - that means you can call look forward to a blog at least every other day. Okay, let's be honest, you all know me - it more likely means that I'll be blogging 8 times on New Years Eve. :)

This was a FABULOUS weekend. We didn't do anything productive, but Geoff says it was fun to solidify our relationship. I said "was it wiggly before?"

Friday we went to REI after work - we are planning on going for a backpacking trip next year for our anniversary (romantic, huh?), so we're starting now in acquiring all of the things we need so we can take advantage of sales as we see them. REI has a couple of good promotions going on right now - 20% off any single outlet item purchase (online only) and $20 off a $100 or more purchase in the store or at regular rei.com. So between all of those promotions and both of our memberships (we used to just have one, until an REI employee pointed out that you get twice as many coupons by having two memberships, and the coupons can be really valuable!), we BOTH got backpacks and sleeping bags this weekend. More on that in a minute. After that we had a holiday party to go to, so we went home and got all gussied up and headed to that. It was a lot of fun - there was a couple there that we met last year at couple's weekend (our annual trip to the beach with 4 other couples) so we chatted with them. We're looking forward to seeing them in about a month for this year's couple's weekend! Then we went to a coffee shop where a coworker's son was playing the piano. He was GREAT! After that we went to Fred Meyer because that's fun on a Friday night (apparently it's the new teenage hangout, we saw a lot of teenagers sitting around on couches in the furniture department... odd!).

Saturday we slept in late and then went out for a delicious breakfast. Then we went to a second REI because the one near us didn't have the backpack I liked in my size. Instead of a backpack, I found a sleeping bag there. They had this really fantastic women's sleeping bag that I wanted (and it was PINK!!!) but they didn't have it in long and I was too long for the regular size bag. So the REI guy suggested the same bag in men's... the men's regular is just a hair longer than the women's long and slightly more spacious (same in the hips, little wider through the shoulders). I reluctantly tried it out (it was blue :( ) and it was great! As much as I didn't want it... it really was just as good. So I got over my childish self and got the blue bag. Then we went to Sleighbells, which is a really fantastic Christmas shop. It was NOT such a fantastic experience though, because it was so crowded. I couldn't even really stand and look at any ornaments because I was afraid someone was going to push me into them and I was going to break them all. But we ended up with an ornament and then high-tailed it out of there. YIKES! After that we went to a third REI (yes, I know, we are freaks - and those 3 used to be the only ones in Oregon so when I went to all 3 in one day or weekend... yes I've done it before... I could say I'd been to every REI in the state. But now there are 3 more - 1 more in the Portland area, 1 in Bend, and 1 in Eugene). At this REI I got a backpack - they had the one in my size. A second driver for getting it now is that my sister is going to Cambodia in January and needs a backpack. She doesn't really have any use for one long term and hasn't been able to find one to borrow or buy used. Since I want one anyway, both my parents and my sister said they would chip in for a portion of the cost so that my sister could use it in January, and then it would be mine until the end of the time. It's a win/win! So then we were done with our whirlwind REI weekend. Oh - and I forgot to mention, Geoff got a backpack and a sleeping bag on REI-outlet.com, and he's happy to say that BOTH of those items cost less than my backpack alone. Usually I'm the deal finder, but he did really well with his backpacking gear!

Sunday morning I worked all morning placing POs for 2009 - fun. But I'm now 90% done with POs for 2009, I just have a couple of more that I'm waiting for more information on and then I will be DONE! :) Then we went to Geoff's parents for lunch. We had grilled cheese and tomato soup, which is pretty much my favorite lunch ever. Soooo good. After that we worked on the puzzle (and by "we" I mean all 4 of us for about 5 minutes, and then Momlie was dedicated for the next 2 or 3 hours while the rest of us sat around worthlessly!). Then my trouble-making father in law was like "why don't you two buy a new truck and trailer!". His real thought was that if we ever DID want to upgrade that now is really the time to do it - the obvious reason of the economy situation, plus we don't have kids or any other responsibilities. It really seems silly now because we JUST got both the Tahoe and the Tango, but it is a good time to be a buyer. We can't upgrade the trailer without the truck - we're pretty much maxed out on towing capacity with the Tahoe. So it'd have to be both... well, or we could do the truck with potentially the trailer down the road, but certainly not the other way around. Anyway - we went and looked Audi's (Geoff's little dream quarter-life crisis car, I guess) and Dodge trucks. Both were fun, but of course we did not end up with a new anything! It was fun to look and test drive though. The deals on trucks right now are pretty good, but not good enough to make me want to buy one. And our trailer is PLENTY big enough for us and whoever we want to take with us - it would be nice to have something like the 329 Bunk House DS (http://www.pacificcoachworks.com/) so that Geoff's mom (our main guest) would have her own little room and space, but it is far from a must.

Anyway! Just a fun weekend. I'm REALLY excited to go backpacking... if we get all of our stuff together we may even go this spring or this summer on a smaller trip and then the "big" trip for our anniversary. I checked out 2 backpacking books from the library too, there are so many great backpacking trips in Oregon. And once you have all of the gear, it's a rather inexpensive vacation. YAY! :)

2 more weeks until "winter break"...

Thanksgiving

I meant for this to be a longer post earlier this week, but it's not. :) Thanksgiving was great - my sister came up on Wednesday with 3 other people she knew from school in California. Of course traffic was terrible, but she finally made it and we had a great dinner at Chevy's (her fave).

Thanksgiving morning we Turkey Trotted at the Oregon Zoo - what a beast! It was only 4 miles, but the first half was downhill (brutal for my knees) and the second half was uphill (brutal for any normal human being). So all in all it was pretty much horrible... except for the fact that I love running and I love races and it was really fun, especially at the end running through the zoo. :) After that we went home and showered, then headed to Geoff's parents for Thanksgiving dinner. It was lots of fun, great food and good times with family and friends.

Friday morning we slept late and then did a little bit of shopping. We had lunch at Burgerville so my sister could have a pumpkin shake and sweet potato fries. Then we headed out to the campground! We tried to get a fire going but never did get it really started, so we just went inside and watched TV on DVD.

Saturday morning was WINE TASTING! My most favoritest day of the year! Well, one of them anyway. And it did not disappoint - we tasted some fabulous wine and snacks and had a great time talking to the people. A fella we knew from when he poured at a previous winery opened up his own place starting last weekend and it was great! I hope he does really well. We'll be back there for sure. Saturday night we got a great fire going and had our traditional marshmallow roasting competition.

Sunday morning we got up early and packed up and headed home, then my sister headed back to California. Geoff and I went to his parent's house and started a 2000 piece puzzle of Las Vegas.

Monday night, Geoff didn't have basketball (Thanksgiving break) so we had Rick and Tiffany over for Trival Pursuit: Pop Culture. It seems like that game is brand new, but I bought it at Fred Meyer the Christmas I was an intern which was 2003! Crazy. With a game like that, it's important to remember when it was made so you don't guess something that hadn't happened yet.

Speaking of games, how cool are the new Monopoly and Life games that allow you to just swipe a debit card when you make a transaction, so you don't spend half the game counting cash (and by cash I of course mean small colored pieces of paper)? I love it! I just can't bring myself to pay $40 for them though, so maybe they'll be on sale one day. :)

The rest of the week has been fun... had a great run on Tuesday and we're headed to a holiday cocktail party tonight. I have a fair amount of work to do over the weekend, but only 2 weeks of work left until we head to Dallas for Christmas. Yeah!

Weekend

Wow, what a weekend. Friday night we swam... Saturday we watched the Northwestern game until we were interrupted by someone who wanted to come see our house. So we went to the gym and ran 4.5 miles (less than was on the schedule this weekend, but I haven't run the last 2 weeks due to illness).

Today we wrestled through some of the issues I've been struggling with. For the last several months (at least, maybe longer), I have been struggling with some potential theological differences with our church. I don't ever expect to have 100% the same theology as any church, but there are some things I can live with and some that are just absolute dealbreakers. Some of the differences that I knew I had were tolerable... but there was one issue that I didn't know where I stood, but I knew where the church stood. I realized it was time to draw the line - make a decision one way or the other, and if I disagreed with the church I couldn't continue to go there (not so much a matter of going there, but really making it my church home was not going to work out). Geoff knew where he stood on the issue but didn't really know the church's stance on it. Part of this came to light at my children's ministry training last week - although it's been coming up for a long time before that, and is perhaps part of the reason we haven't really made this church our own. Me committing to the children's ministry is a commitment to the church and we need to decide before that. We've talked about it a lot the last couple of weeks and yesterday decided to at least try a different church today. This sounds dramatic and uncharacteristic of me, but what can I say, I'm struggling. And it was a big deal.

The church we decided to go to today had a 6 PM service that we chose, so we had the morning to ourselves, which was weird. We went to his mom's house for lunch (which was fun, we talked through some of these issues a little bit, had some chili, and discussed Thanksgiving and wine tasting). Then Geoff and I decided it was deal or no deal time. Or something like that. Anyway, we decided to work through my issues so that we could make a decision about church. We talked and prayed and poured over Scripture and struggled. Well, I struggled. Geoff was trying to make his point - which isn't to say that he necessarily wanted me to believe what he believed, but wanted to show me why he believes what he believes. I eventually agreed with him - which really is best anyway, because even with one of us having what is to us a very strong theological difference with the church, we really shouldn't be calling it our church.

We tried the new church tonight (not really new... we have been before and weren't huge fans). It was perfect. NOT that the church was perfect... but that the worship experience was perfect for our day today. It was a perfect feeling of freedom and peace saying "yes". I don't know for sure that it was "yes" this is the right church for us but it was definitely "yes" that we are to find a new church home. Everything about the entire experience... from music to preaching to communion to community... spoke volumes to me and Geoff and met us where we are in life.

What a struggle being in Oregon has been for me... my whole childhood I went to the local Methodist church, simple as that. My parents do that to this day... wherever they move, they find the Methodist church and that is that. I did that my freshman and sophomore years of college... and then I changed to a church that many members of my campus fellowship went to. An AMAZING new experience for me... culturally and Biblically and musically and in many other ways. I would never again be content to find the local Methodist church (which is not to say there is anything wrong with that!). When I first moved here I searched for a church and after a few very failed tries, a coworker recommended her church to me. I went and there was an Asian woman leading worship... I thought YES!!!! A culturally diverse church, this is what I need! I don't know why I didn't take a look around that room, that church is classic white suburban. :) And unfortunately, that's pretty much what you get in Portland... I miss Chicago. But at any rate... I called that my church home from my internship through the first several years I was here. I was involved with the young adults ministry, I was a member of a women's small group and on the leadership team for the young adults. That church is in fact where I met Geoff. But at the time we met, he was not in a place where he could have called that his church home (ironically, he probably could now, but there are other reasons we won't go back to that church). So we started looking for other churches... but it was hard because he worked most Sundays. When he changed jobs this winter, we fully dedicated ourselves to finding a church together. I had been mostly attending the church we've been going to together most of the year for most of 2007. In February, his parents asked us if we wanted to find a church together with them. So we spent several months trying out churches and just after Easter ended up in this most recent church - which I (and Geoff when he could) have been basically going to since December of 2006. There's a lot to love - loud, powerful worship, great preaching, Biblical conviction. God is doing great things there, and bringing people (especially young people) en masse. God is DEFINITELY using that church. It's sad and hard and difficult to leave (I would like to pause here to acknowledge that I know that's not correct to say X and Y and Z, that I should say X, Y, and Z. But I do the X and Y and Z sometimes because I think it emphasizes each word. Maybe not, but it's my blog. Writer's privilege or prerogative or whatever it's called). But Geoff's parents recently felt called back to what had been their church home for many years, and in a way, that gave us a freedom to make a choice as well.

So it's the end of an era I guess... I was sad most of today realizing this, but like I said above, felt a strong peace about it tonight, so I'm no longer sad. I pray that we would finally have a church home... I haven't felt like I have since college, and maybe before. I long for a church where we go to worship on Sundays and say hello to our friends and welcome new people. I long for a place where I can work in the nursery and know the parents and know the babies and just love on all of them. I long for a church where I can be a part of a strong women's group and learn how to be a better wife and sister and daughter and friend. I long for a place where I can find somewhere to use my strongest gifts - leadership and administration. I long for a place where I can serve others. I long for a place where I can meet a group of couples who are in the season of life my husband and I are in... where we can challenge each other and fellowship with each other and encourage each other. I long for a place that I can call a pastor and ask him a theological or Biblical question. I long for a home... it's been a long time, and I pray it's coming soon.

End of heavy blog. (Geoff and Momlie were making fun of me today for saying things like this all the time - like "and that is all". I feel like I'm supposed to write a conculsion (is this a 5 paragraph essay?) and sometimes I just can't. My blog is a brain dump... and I know you dearest readers will love this... these types of blogs are the ones that tell you who I am.)

Big Things!

For some reason, big, weighty things have been on my mind lately. They may not be big and weighty to the rest of the world, but I'm a simple girl. I don't think much. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I guess I should revise that to I don't think about the world much... I think about simple, easy, industrial engineering and Excel type concepts. Not world peace.

Things on my mind lately:
- The role of women in family, the church, and the world
- Pirates
- Gay marriage / abortion / polygamy
- Health

These are just not things I think about often. I just accept the world around me and carry on. Perhaps I'm apathetic... but it just seems easier. I guess that's why apathetic people are apathetic, right?

I had book club tonight. It was one of the most fun book club nights in recent memory. We all got to read our own book and give a "book report" on it. I read a Nelson DeMille book... I love Nelson DeMille. Everyone else read these big weighty things. One person read The China Study and stopped eating meat because of the health benefits talked about in the book. One person read the US Constitution. One person read The Hundred Year Lie (which several other girls had read) and totally changed her diet, lotions/shampoos/soaps, clothing, etc. because of toxins and is thinking of going to Texas to get a toxicology report. One person, expecting a baby girl, read The Female Brain which discusses how a woman’s mind develops and changes throughout her life and various stages of her life, from conception to post-menopause. One person read a book I can’t remember the name of that completely changed the way she interacts with her dog and now the dog acts completely differently and they have had a much more positive experience with the dog since then. I’m telling you, the list went on and on like this. And I read about a wealthy lawyer on Long Island who lives next to a mafia don. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but it’s interesting.

I’m not sure if those two topics (my weighty “mind issues” and a book club full of women who read serious books) have anything to do with each other. But the book club got me thinking (and actually trying to avoid thinking, especially about The Hundred Year Lie) and then I was thinking about how much I’ve been thinking.

I do believe that Americans do not eat what our bodies have been eating for the past thousands of years, just in the past 50 years we have radically altered our diets… I have thought for some time that it’s much better for us to eat whole grains, plants, etc. But how realistic is that? Even if you eat that way at home, what about when you’re at someone else’s home, or dining out? And what about the expense? And what about the fact that there are so many things that could kill us anyway, so should we enjoy our food instead of spending our time worrying about how that Diet Coke we just drank is going to kill us? One thing I AM big on is balance… so maybe you do better where you can, but don’t worry about what you can’t change because... you can’t change it. :)

Philosophical rambling blog over.

Ugh

It has been a long hard week. Last week I was sick and this week I have been mostly better, but work has been crazy. Demanding, draining, busy, boring, and probably a few other things all at the same time. We have had people here from out of town the past 3 days to figure out some complicated methodology for spliting money up... ick. Plus we've had to "entertain" them after work. And the end of the year is always busy for me at work - right around Thanksgiving is the busiest, then around Christmas it slows way down. I told Geoff I'm looking forward to the following:
I am looking forward to book club (tonight)
I am looking forward to the afternoon off (probably going to do that tomorrow)
I am looking forward to sleep (tonight)
I am looking forward to swimming (Friday)
I am looking forward to football (Saturday)
I am looking forward to running (Saturday)
Goodness is to come.
Relief is to come!

What'd I say I was going to blog about? Children's Ministry was one of them I think. I signed up to help with Children's Ministry at church and there was a training session on Sunday. HARDCORE!!! It's actually quite sad. Lots of rules - stemming from the "society we live in". Unfortunately, we have to think about things like custody battles - Mom has custody and Dad wants it, Dad knows Mom goes to Church X so he tries to pick up the kids from their classroom. So now the drop off parent has to have a nametag, pager, and wrist bracelet to identify them - and you can't pick up your child without all 3 things. I was reading the information before the session and it said only women can change diapers and take children to the bathroom. I was getting kind of huffy about it... then the woman in charge said "statistically, men are more likely to be pedophiles, that's why we have that rule". Well of course I'll get on board with statistics. She said every rule they have is because they've had a bad experience with it in the past - which is sad because it's a very new church. No child can be alone with an adult - you can have 2 kids and 1 adult, or 2 adults and 1 kid, but not 1:1. This is to protect the child, obviously, as well as protect the adult from false allegations. You can hug children under 5, but kindergarten - 5th grade you are supposed to be teaching appropriate physical boundaries. If a kindergartener scrapes her knee, you can give her a hug - but only if you're a female and so is she. Things like that. Middle school and high school - basically no touching of any sort. There's a hall monitor in the hallway during Sunday (and midweek) services at all times. Adults can't use the children's bathroom, and you can only take children to the bathroom if you have 2 or more children with you - and you can only enter the bathroom if it's entirely empty (the hall monitor checks before you go in). There are special needs children and children with cancer and children dealing with divorce and money issues and everything else - she reminded us that no matter what problems we have in our lives, these kids have those same problems and concerns too. You have to have 4 references and a criminal background check, and be a certain age. The goal is to absolutely protect the children first - no matter how inconvenient it may be for any adult (parent, worker, etc). It's a great thing, it's just a little bit overwhelming and sad to think that we need these things. A far cry from when I helped out in the nursery as a junior higher... never would have happened today.

I think that's all for now. Maybe more tomorrow!

Famous!

I've got several blogs brewing in my head right now - one about my new plan that I like to call the New New Deal and another about my experience at church on Sunday - but for now this one will suffice.

The show Little People Big World is filmed roughly 10 minutes from our house - because that's where the people live! It's been on for about 3 years I think (when Addy lived with me in 2005 and 2006 she was already watching it) but Geoff and I just recently started watching it. I'm not sure what exactly made us start, but we enjoyed seeing our local stores and restaurants on the show. On one episode they were at Taco Bell and we were both like "which one is that?" We looked for clues around the Taco Bell (since there are about 4 very close to us) and figured it out based on a stereo store next door to it. They go to a grocery store we go to often (we have never seen them there in real life though) and they also go to one of my favorite restaurants (they were actually there when we were once, they came in with their film crew and everything). They also go to the same Home Depot we do... actually it's surprising that we've only seen them out and about once, because we seem to shop and eat at the same places quite often.

So last night I'm falling asleep and Geoff is watching the show. All of the sudden he kind of quietly says "honey?" to see if I'm awake... and I say "what?" I know that he's going to point out to me that they're at Wendy's or something and it's the Wendy's near our house or work. But no... he says "I think I just saw our HOUSE." WHAT?!?!?!?!!? So he rewinds... and they are at a soccer game. Well there is a soccer field very close to our house, and we are recognizing houses that look oddly familiar. It's definitely our neighborhood. Then sure enough, in two seperate shots... we can see our house!!!! We are FAMOUS!!!!! :)

Oh and by the way, even though we kind of started enjoying the show for looking for places nearby us... we do actually enjoy watching the family and their interactions with each other and others. But it's still fun to see our house on TV!

I'm alive!

No, Google Reader isn't just not sending you my feeds, I actually haven't been posting. I have been sick since Saturday - I think with the flu? I was pretty much down and out for the weekend and stayed home from work Monday as well. I've been getting progressively better throughout the week. Today I'm at about 90 - 95%. I'm hoping to be 100% better by tomorrow. So this week has been pretty much a bust.

Other than that, things have been great. Running was going really well, I haven't run at all since last Wednesday so I'm hoping I'll be able to run tomorrow and get back into it fairly easily. The Turkey Trot is coming up in 13 days and I want to stay on schedule for my half marathon training. I officially signed up and bought plane tickets for the half marathon, so I am set!

I have a big Walgreens trip planned today... hopefully they'll have everything in stock. The most exciting thing that I think I'm buying is a new hair dryer. I think I told you this before - but I have one of those travel ones that folds in half to travel. About 6 months ago (yes, embarassingly that long ago) I folded it in half and it kind of made a cracking sound, and now it doesn't go into it's normal L shape anymore. I have to hold it into it's L shape to blow dry my hair. Since I'm cheap, I haven't bought a new one. But today is the day. Let's just hope they have them in stock! There are 3 Walgreens within a 1.5 mile radius from our house, so hopeully someone has them. One is brand new - I'm not even positive it's open yet, but I'm pretty sure when I went for a run a couple of weeks ago I saw it open. I am a freak.

These things are the reasons why I cannot run for President. Someone would find this blog in some cache somewhere and be like "this freak thinks a trip to Walgreens to get a good deal is exciting... she cannot POSSIBLY run our country". Other than that though, I'd obviously be a fantastic candidate. ;-)

So true...

Kelly:
Shoot I forgot to have my snack. Oh well.
Live and learn I always say
‎‎Geoff:
lol
you do not always say that!
Kelly:
Hahahahahaha
I was hoping you didn't notice.
‎‎Geoff:
normally you dwell on it for a week
and then live and learn
‎‎Kelly:
HAHAHAHA
‎‎Geoff:
but then come back to it for an hour or two every day!

A new low for society

Certified Pre-Owned Massage Chairs. I'm all for reusing and helping the environment, but still. Scary.

Pool

I love the pool. I always have - I took my first swimming lessons when I was 6 months old. Okay, so they may not have been swimming lessons so much as it was moms and their kids in the pool teaching them that water exists. But I attribute that to my love for water. I took all of the levels of Red Cross swimming lessons. I was a lifeguard. I was on a swim team. I even have the broad shoulders of a swimmer - the shoulders that made the butterfly the first race I ever won. Anyway, my swim last night was great. I just feel so at home in the water. I wondered why I don't just be a swimmer instead of a "runner", but it's just so much less convenient... you can run anywhere, anytime... finding a pool is much more difficult. But I love it all the same, and it's excellent cross training.

In VERY exciting news, our H2C team is in for 2009! Our check was cashed this morning, and although I haven't received official word from the race organization yet, I have full confidence that they wouldn't cash our check if we weren't in. VERY EXCITING.

Nelson DeMille (my favorite author) has a new book out today! It's called The Gate House, and it's a sequel to The Gold Coast, which strangely enough I have never read. As of today he has published 15 books, and I think I've read 8 of them (I think I own all that I've read). I'm reading The Gold Coast right now, it's very good so far! I will go to Costco later this week to get The Gate House. I'm SO excited. I love Nelson DeMille books. I started in 1997 with Plum Island (I read it my sophomore year of high school over Christmas break while in Colorado). I have read every one of his books that has come out since then - 4 of the 6 have John Corey as the main character. John Corey is HILARIOUS. And I've gone back in time to 3 books he wrote before Plum Island, but there are a few I've missed (including The Gold Coast which I'm reading now), so I guess I have some fun reading ahead!

An excellent weekend! :)

This weekend was fantastic! :)

Friday we ended up at work late and then didn't feel like the swim we had planned - especially since the weather was so beautiful! So we opted to use our cross-training day for a walk outside instead. We did that and had a calzone for dinner. After that I decided to start a closet cleaning out project. Normally this would be super fun and I would make a big mess in the project, but with the whole house-on-the-market thing, I had to be more contained about it. Of course, it was still really fun! Geoff was on our bed watching TV or a movie or something, and I brought out an armload of clothes and dumped it on the bed next to him. He said "should I be afraid?" and I said "yes!" My plan was to take ALL of the clothes off the top shelf of the closet and put them on the bed, then be particular about what went back in (and send the rest to Goodwill). The top shelf has mostly sweaters/fleeces/cardigans/sweatshirts, plus a few workout clothes and all of my tank tops. So back and forth from the closet I went, dumping more and more clothes in a big mound next to Geoff. It was very entertaining. Then I went through the pile, refolded and re-organized everything into piles - heavy sweaters, light sweaters, cardigans, fleeces, sweatshirt, zippy thingies (like sweatshirts that have a zipper... hoodies I guess, but it seems like they didn't all have hoods!). Geoff doesn't have as many sweaters / sweatshirts so his didn't get organized, just put on the shelf in 2 piles. Then my tank tops got put in 2 piles, no real organization there either. And quite a few items to Goodwill. :) We had to run EARLY in the morning, so I stopped there and cleaned up everything. I love organizing. Oh, and I also pondered the fact that I hang my hanging tops in order by color but my folded tops are by category. That seems weird to me, and I wondered if I should change one or the other but Geoff said they are okay (well duh, of course HE said it was okay). I am a firm believer in having a system that works for the user, so I'm not going to change it even though it seems slightly weird. Maybe if we move.

Saturday morning we got up at the obscene hour of 6:30 AM. Not that 6:30 is so early for a weekday or anything, but who gets up at 6:30 just to go for a run? Ew. I ate some oatmeal and waited a bit, and we set out for a 4-miler at 7 AM. Geoff was out of control!! He really showed the run who was boss. After the run he said it was the first time he felt like he was really a runner… he just kept pushing himself a little further. I had a not-so-good run… I NEVER run well early in the morning, so that was expected for me. Mid-afternoon is my preferred running time (I think because I’ve had a chance to be eating and moving around all day so my body is just more warmed up). But we got it done! After that we went to the pumpkin patch with our friends Rick and Tiffany – they picked us up and we got the pumpkins, then ate lunch at Helvetia Tavern. Then we came back to our house just in time to see that Northwestern LOST this weekend. Sad sad day. We carved super cute pumpkins… well, everyone else did, I just picked out the seeds and baked pumpkin seeds. Then we got a call that someone was going to come to our house to look at it Sunday – PRAISE! After that we headed to Rick and Tiffany’s apartment for the OSU / Penn State game. Tiffany’s a Big Ten girl like me (OSU graduate) so we had lots of fun. They made a delicious cilantro/jalapeño dip and fed us pizza, wine, chocolate and other delicious things. We like them. ;-) Sadly, OSU lost too, so Tiffany felt my pain. After that we headed home – it’d been a looong day. I think I fell asleep in approximately 7 seconds.

Yesterday we went to church at 9 AM (we are becoming morning people or something). After that we went to Geoff’s parent’s house for lunch – his mom made us French dips and French fries. Yum! We watched about half the Nascar race and then headed home to get stuff done! Since we were coming from his parent’s house, we went to DSW Shoes (they live WAY closer than we do to it). I know several people who have had bad experiences there (mainly stemming from their poopy return policy) but I braved it anyway. I haven’t been since I lived in Chicago and it was AWESOME! They had a giant selection and reasonable prices. I was very pleased and I got three pairs of shoes. I was planning on 3 pairs, so that was fine… I haven’t bought new shoes (except for running shoes) since May of 2006. Yes. Two and a half years. I know I am a freak. I found the three pairs I was looking for in about an hour. After that we went to Costco for bananas, peanut butter, and socks. I needed new socks to go with my new shoes. When we came home we found the realtor had actually left a card – PRAISE! Half of the people who’ve called to say they wanted to come look at our house haven’t actually come in and this was the first one who left a card so we knew they’d been there! FINALLY! (our realtor can tell us later on if the people came based on if anyone opened up the lock box to get our key, but leaving a business card is immediate notification) Then I worked on Closet Project Part II. I got rid of 12 pairs of shoes of mine and 1 pair of Geoff’s – that made room for my 3 new pairs and to move some from our downstairs closet upstairs. Now I think pretty much all of our shoes are in our master bedroom closet. (Geoff has probably 10 pairs total and I have probably 25 pairs total including a whole bunch of flip-flops… we are not really shoe people – although I’m going to start making an effort to actually WEAR all of the shoes I have instead of just the same pair EVERY DAY) I went through my hanging clothes and got rid of a bunch of them – I also used up a bunch of shopping bags that I have been “collecting” since I moved to Oregon 4 years ago. I always save them because they seem useful but never know what to do with them – they were PERFECT for all of the shoes/sweaters/shirts I need to take to Goodwill. I filled probably 12 shopping bags with stuff for Goodwill, yay! Then we went to the gym where Geoff ran into an old friend he went to high school with and then we went to Red Robin for dinner. I unloaded the dishwasher and folded a load of laundry and I think that was about it.

Wow. I just wrote a blog on organizing my closet. I’m sorry friends! And I also need to take a lesson on proper use of ( ). I write a lot of sentences that are just ( ) with no other punctuation! I’m sure you noticed already, astute people that you are.

3 reasons today is a good day!

1. I gave blood today! Giving blood always puts me in a good mood - even though they somehow overbooked the blood drive (I think that's a GOOD thing) and my appointment took me an hour and 45 minutes. I don't know what I love about it... perhaps the pink bandage at the end, or it could be the cookie and the excuse not to workout for the day. What's not to love? (P.S. - boys, you get a CHOICE of bandage... so you can go for a manly blue or green, you don't have to get pink. But pink is obviously the best choice)

2. Whenever I'm training for a half marathon and am traveling at the same time, I always seem to be able to recruit people to run oddly long distances with me. 2 years ago I was scheduled for a 9 miler the same weekend as a retreat I was going to. Somehow there ended up being FIVE PEOPLE (2 training for a marathon, another training for a half, me, and a guy who I think wanted to impress one of the girls) who were willing to get up at 6:00 AM and run for 2 hours through Cannon Beach. When we strolled into breakfast around 8:30 everyone else on the retreat gave us looks of insanity - understandably! This year, half marathon training takes me to a distance of 10 miles two days after Christmas. Already, Geoff (who is doing the half with me), my sister (who has always been a runner), and my friend Erin from college (running a half the week after I am) have agreed to a 10 miler with me in Dallas. SWEET! :) I love sharing the misery.

3. It's Geoff's birthday! Yaaay for birthdays. :)

Why couldn't I have said FOXTROT?

We went to the gym tonight after work, and it was stinkin' HOT!!! It was a high of about 75 here today, and I guess the gym wasn't expecting that, so the AC wasn't on as much as it should have been. Not to mention the treadmills are UPSTAIRS which makes it even hotter. I thought it was just me, but Geoff and my other friend who was there (who was walking, not running) both confirmed it was stifling. So we cut our run short and went on to lifting - which was the reason we were there in the first place (the half marathon training schedule calls for one day of running AND lifting, that day was today this week. We decided to run at the gym despite the nice weather so that we could just lift while we were there too). That part went quite well. :)

I have been working on organizing all of my music on iTunes. It is a long tedious process... and I get through about one letter of the alphabet a night, if I'm lucky. Tonight I was reporting my progress to Geoff, and it went like this:
Me: "I got through F tonight"
Geoff: "Wow, X??"
M: "No, F. As in Fooey."
G: "That's P-H."
M: "Oh."

The man has a point. Who spells phooey FOOEY??? And better yet, who gives FOOEY as an example for the letter F??? I'm a freak.

Life

So last night I got in the pool about 8 PM. May have been 8:01 or 8:02, but as I started swimming I noted 8:00. I swam 20 laps (500 yards) and took a break. I looked up at the clock and it said roughly 8:12 or 8:13. I was disappointed because I normally swim 500 yards in 10 minutes, so I was swimming a little slowly. So I swam my second set (again 500 yards) a little harder. I took a break and looked up at the clock - GONE! Seriously, the clock was gone. I thought "Am I looking at the wrong wall? Did I get turned around in the pool somehow? Am I hallucinating? Was there an earthquake while I was swimming?" I've been swimming in this pool for 2.5 years and never had such an issue before. Upon further review (approximately .8 second later) I saw a janitor on a ladder holding the clock. He reached up to put it back on the wall - and it said 8:12 or 8:13!!!! UGH!!!! All of that work and I have no idea if I was faster or not. I realized that I had left for the gym about 7:35, so the clock was probably originally 10 minutes fast and he was just setting it back, but it was very funny. Then I swam my third set and was excited to just be done, so I never did check the clock after that one. Oh well. :) Maybe next time!

This morning I went down to the cafe at work to get some coffee and a bowl for my oatmeal. I was holding the coffee in one hand and the bowl and spoon in the other. I have no idea what I was doing, but all of the sudden - CRASH! The bowl slips out of my hand and crashes into a thousand pieces all over the cafe floor. Thank goodness nothing was in it and that I get to work early so the cafe wasn't super busy. Embarssing though. :) I commented at the time "well at least now I have something good to blog about today".

Fun weekend!

Had a super fun weekend - I wasn't feeling the best so I didn't know how it would go, but it ended up turning out really fun! Friday night we went to a local coffeehouse to see my coworker's son play the piano. He is extremely talented and it was a lot of fun. Plus I'd never been to that coffee shop before and it was a really nice place, so I think we'll be back in the future. Great atmosphere! After that we went to a pub to hang out.... we played cards and talked for a long time.

The next morning I slept until 9:30... oops! We watched Northwestern beat Purdue in the homecoming game which was tons of fun.

Sunday we ran the Run Like Hell 5K in Portland. It was my first 5K - isn't that weird? I have run 2 Hood to Coasts, 2 10Ks, and a half marathon - but never raced in the 5K distance before. It felt so short! It went by really quickly but was a lot of fun.

Yesterday also marked Day 1 of Week 1 of Half Marathon training - Geoff, Patrick, and I are all going to run the Rock 'N' Roll Arizona Half Marathon in January. At least I think we are (Patrick is already signed up). The registration fee goes up the middle of next month so assuming we are on track training-wise, Geoff and I will sign up then. The race is in 13 weeks... we are well positioned for the training plan I'm going to use (the same one that I loosely based my last half marathon training on, although this time I'm going to follow it a little more closely). Today is Day 2 - cross training. :) I'm planning on 30 minutes in the pool tonight (which feels so short, normally I spend 55 minutes in the pool, so this is great)! Geoff's going to basketball for his cross training (he plays every Monday night with men from church). SOOO excited!

I've been tagged. :)

I have read people's blogs in which they've been tagged for months, and never been tagged myself. But now I've been tagged by Marisa, so here we go!

1. do you like blue cheese salad dressing? Yes but not necessarily on a salad – but I LOVE it on buffalo wings, fries, etc. Probably not as much as ranch though.
2. do you own a gun? No.
3. what's your favorite drink at starbucks? Grande caramel frappucino (although it varies slightly by season).
4. what do you prefer to drink in the morning? Water, and on the weekdays I usually have one cup of coffee.
5. do you do push ups? Sporadically.
6. what's your favorite piece of jewelry? I don’t know… my wedding ring?
7. favorite hobby? Running at the moment… but it changes practically weekly.
8. do you have a.d.d.? No.
9. what's one trait that you hate about yourself? Lack of dedication.
10. name 3 thoughts at this exact moment: My knees hurt but I’m looking forward to running tonight anyway, I’m getting annoyed with people at work for not showing up to something they were supposed to come to at 10:30, and I’m glad to be blogging.
11. name 4 drinks you regularly drink. Water, coffee, wine, and Diet Coke. That’s pretty much in order of how often I drink them. Although I easily drink more water than the other 3 combined – probably 2 or 3x really!
12. current worry right now? No worries.
13. current hate right now? People who call to say they’re going to come look at our house and then don’t.
14. favorite place to be? Bed.
15. do you like to travel? Yes.
16. what color shirt are you wearing? Grey with a black hoodie over it.
17. do you like sleeping on satin sheets? I don’t really think I ever have.
18. can you whistle? To a tune? No.
19. favorite color? Pink.
20. if you could would you be a pirate? No. That’s weird.
21. what song do you sing in the shower? Well I rarely sing in the shower but if I do it’s usually a worship song, mainly because they have easy choruses.
22. favorite girl's name? Off the top of my head, Catherine, although I don’t know that I’d necessarily name a child that.
23. favorite boy's name? Tyler? Again off the top of my head. I have thought of a few good ones in the past month or so and need to start keeping a list somewhere. Just in case.
24. what's in your pocket right now? My Amex.
25. favorite bedsheets as a child? Some ridiculous black ones with green and teal stripes on them (from my teen years). I loved them but when I got to college I had some lavender ones and realized that it was oddly easier to sleep on light colored sheets. I would never use dark sheets again (although they are still in “my bedroom” at my parent’s house, so I use them ~once a year).
26. worst injury? I fell off my bike in first grade and the whole left side of my face was one giant scab. It was very disgusting looking. The teacher (Miss Messina) told all of the other kids in the class to basically avoid me… so that they didn’t cause me any more injury.
27. do you love where you live? Most of the time.
28. how many TVs do you have in your house? Two that we use. Two older ones that we don’t use – they’re in guest bedrooms and not hooked up to cable or anything, but could be used for watching a DVD. Heck, one of them even has a VCR hooked up to it!29. who is your loudest friend? Addy.
30. how many pets do you have? None.
31. does someone have a crush on you? Who knows!
32. what is your favorite book? Plum Island by Nelson DeMille. But really, any of his books, especially if John Corey is the main character.
33. what's your favorite candy? Reeses Peanut Butter cups
34. favorite sports team? Northwestern football!!!!!!
35. what was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? I had a bad dream last night and I can’t remember what it was.

To be fair, the person I was waiting for earlier when I started this blog DID show up right after I answered that question and came through in a big way!

I tag Patrick. Because I think he should start a blog!

Progress

Making progress on three main fronts:

1. Running! 7 or so weeks ago I started out running .5 miles. I increased half a mile a week (yes I know you're only supposed to increase by 10% each week....) and now I'm ready for a 5K on Sunday.

2. Picture storage! Remember how in the past several months I have promised you pictures on several occasions? And said that I wanted to start taking more pictures but needed to come up with an organization system first? Well I did that over the weekend so now I can start taking more pictures AND posting them to my blog. My goal is going to be a weekly picture update.

3. Goal setting! I have never been a big "personal goal setter" but I decided to start. I made daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals, quarterly goals, yearly goals, and long term and/or undefined goals. The goals are in 5 big categories (career & education, family & relationship, health & fitness, personal growth / interest / recreation / leisure, and time & money management / organization / home). Then there are subcategories (for example in personal growth / interest / recreation / leisure there are 4 subcategories - recreation/hobbies/leisure, community service / stewardship, creative, and spiritual) and goals for each of the sub categories in the different time frames (not every subcategory has a goal for every time period... I'm not *that* crazy!). Anyway it's a giant matrix - 14x20 (cells in Excel). But I love it and I already feel more productive and well rounded even in just the couple of weeks since I've implemented it. I've already added and deleted a few things since I started - this is a work in progress. :) I've also already failed at a few things but I've also accomplished a ton and made steps toward some of the longer term goals. In the future I may think about posting some goals on the blog and giving a monthly state of the union... we'll see how it goes.

Quick again...

Okay, so first of all I know I had a mistake on my last blog about grammar - embarassing! And no, I didn't edit it so if you didn't catch it you can go back and laugh at my expense. I was in a rush which is absolutely no excuse... I would criticize others and say that if you don't have time to write well don't write at all. So all it is is me being an idiot!

Anyway, my sister and I were talking tonight about our Thanksgiving plans. She's going to be here for Thanksgiving and is going to join me, Geoff, and Momlie on A Wine Country Thanksgiving. This will be our 3rd Thanksgiving going - our first with anyone else besides the 3 of us! So I said "oh, cool, you can meet my friend Thistle-Man". She said "What is that?" I said "Thistle Wines... it's a winery that I really like." "What??" "Thistle Man... Jon Jennison... he's the winemaker at Thistle Wines". "But what's a fransisleman?"

HAHAHAHAHA - when I said "you can meet my friend Thistle-Man" she heard "you can be my fransisleman".

"What's a fransisleman and why would I want to be that?"

I have nothing else to say... laughing too darn hard!!! :)

small update and a rant

Nothing like a grammar mistake to bring me out of my blog hiatus! In the last 6 months or so, it seems to have become trendy to overuse "myself". Like "you know a ton more than myself" or "Jack, Brad, and myself went to the store". What is wrong with me or I? It seems that people don't know if they should use me or I in a sentence and so they avoid it entirely by using "myself" and thinking that somehow sounds better.

My problem with grammar is that I hear these things and I know they're not right, but I don't necessarily know WHY. So then I have to google me/myself/I and find a plethora of information. Best I can tell, myself is a "special object" to be used only when you are the subject of the sentence. Like "I walked to the store by myself". "I" is the subject, so then you can use myself.

So there's your grammar lesson for the day. In other news, someone else made an offer on the house we're had the contingent offer in on, so it looks like they will end up with it instead of us. Not too much else going on!

Airport Observations

I'm at the airport right now, I have a quick overnight business trip before my NINE GLORIOUS DAYS camping at the coast. I've been here since about 6 since Geoff dropped me off before work, and my flight's not until 9:55. That's okay, I've been online the whole time getting work done (okay, and blogging).

Anyway, I'm sitting outside of Starbucks (if you know the PDX airport, right when you pass through security on the ABC side there's that Starbucks with the lounge area? Yeah, I'm there) and at a table right near me there are 3 cops. All of the sudden a 4th cop comes whizzing in on his bicycle and screeching to a halt! I seriously thought he was going to hit their table - it was kinda funny. When he got there, one of the other cops got up and left immediately, and the other 2 stood up to talk to biker cop. I was watching this all go down when biker cop looked over at me, smiled, and said good morning. Friendly biker cop!!!

Oh, and the one other thing that happened: I went to the bathroom a little while ago and just as I locked the door to my stall someone said "Kelly? Do you have to go potty?" I was thinking "WHAT? Yes, of course I do!"... and then I realized there was a little girl named Kelly in the restroom as well. :)

More house stuff

So I can't remember where I left off yesterday, but we made a home inspection appointment for this week and it's only going to be $255!!! That is super exciting news. I guess that's the bonus of going to a house that's only a little over half the size of the one you currently live in. :) Sometimes they charge an "older home fee" but not in this case which is great.

Except then we found out that we probably need to do a septic inspection too, since we'd be on septic rather than sewer.
- There is a $150 fee for locating and unburying the septic system/tank.
- There is a $0.37 / gallon fee for pumping and cleaning the tank.
- There is a $300 fee for the inspection itself.

With a 1000 gallon tank that's full (just a guess, we have no idea how big it is or how full it is), this could be $820 on a house we may not even end up with! Which I realize is always the case when you're still in the inspection process, but in this case it's particularily a long shot because of the contingency. Ick. And we don't know if the seller will locate the tank for us and let us dig it up (apparently they are buried 18 - 20 inches under ground).

Then we had to read all of the disclosures (which we read before when we first made an offer on this home 4 months ago) and sign our lives away about lead paint, asbestos, and all of the other exciting things older homes have to offer. Makes me miss our more modern home already!

But then the day started looking up: our realtor decided that it really is dumb for us to have to do the septic inspection at this point with so much up in the air, so we're going to write an addendum to request that we do the septic inspection AFTER the contingency is up (if it ever is). Hopefully he accepts that. And if not, hopefully he at least tells us where the tank is and lets us dig it ourselves so we can save $150.

The good news continued when Geoff called to make an appointment with the sewer peeps. They asked how old the home is and when he told them, they said they don't need to do the $300 system inspection since it will fail anyway. I'm not sure if that's actually comforting or not, but it will save us $300 at least. Included in the pumping/cleaning fee is an inspection of the actual tank, so at least they can tell us if there's a giant crack or anything. So now we're down from $820 to a max (assuming a 1000 gallon tank that's full) of $370. Much more palitable. Although I'm still hoping he says we don't have to do this until if/after the contingency is dropped.

So that's the current update. Nothing has happened on our current house - no lookers yet. The sign is getting put up in front of our house today and we have an open house scheduled for 9/14 (this Sunday). If you know anyone who needs a nice house in suburban Portland, you know where to come... :)

Movin' & Shakin'

Lots of stuff going on!! Our house went on the market on Friday, and we submitted the offer on the new house on Saturday. The owner came back yesterday with his counter which we accepted! We have 90 days now to sell our house and he asked us to get our inspection now rather than after our house sells - that way he isn't waiting 90 days for us to get an inspection and find some deal breaker after the fact. So we have that setup for Thursday morning. I'll be out of town but Geoff will handle it! He's also going to walk the property at the same time and hopefully set up a septic inspection for the same time. Craziness!

Our house is supposed to get the sign up in front of it today or tomorrow - not that that's a big deal but that will sorta be the "final" step in getting it on the market. Haven't had any calls yet, but there is an open house this Sunday so hopefully that will generate SOME interest... who knows. But imagine this: we sell and close on our house within 90 days, that's the beginning of December, so right around the 1st of the year we could be moving into our beautiful new house! (and I use the words "beautiful" and "new" both VERY loosely :)

House for sale!

So we met with the realtor last night and our house goes on the market today!!! (well, maybe tomorrow morning - depends on when the system updates or whatever) If you know someone who wants to buy a 4 bedroom / 2.5 bath house in the Beaverton, Oregon area - leave a comment in my blog and I will send you the details. Or if you're just interested in seeing all of the pictures and stuff, let me know that too and I'll send you the listing once I have it. :-) Stalkers. Just kidding. I'd want to see it too!

Tonight I'm going to Dinner's Ready to make a bunch of meals for my camping trip with Momlie that starts a week from today... YEAH!!!! So excited. :) Both about making the meals and the actual trip itself. And I have a business trip between now and then so it's going to be hectic time. Oh yeah, and we're selling our house and making an offer on another house.

That's about it... I had some character flaw (mine, not someone else's) that I was going to blog about but I don't remember what it was, so I guess it wasn't that important. I'll try to remember it later. Just wanted to give a quick update!

Embarassing Story

I was just in the copy room making some copies of receipts for a business expense that I incurred last week and for which I was submitting a reimbursement request. (that sentence originally ended I was submitting a reimbursement request for and then I remembered for is a preposition - so although it may sound odd, that sentence is grammatically correct)

Pause. Okay, after I "fixed" my sentence, I thought I remembered reading some time ago that you actually COULD end a sentence with a preposition in English. So I did some research, and in fact you can. It’s in LATIN that you can’t end a sentence with a preposition. However, when the preposition is unnecessary (at the end of the sentence or otherwise), that’s when you should leave it off. For example, when people say “where’s it at?” I grit my teeth every time! “Where is it” is sufficient. Of course, “Where’s it?” doesn’t sound quite as good, but “where is it at” is the same as “where’s it at” and it’s just adding that extra at that you don’t need! There’s your grammar lesson for the day – you can end a sentence in a preposition, just don’t add an unnecessary one. So I suppose my opening sentence above would have been correct as originally written.

Play. After I opened the copy machine after copying the receipts, the movement of opening the lid sent my receipts flying all around. The smallest one (which happened to be the biggest expense) flew right in the crack between the two pieces of the copy machine (the collating piece and the copying piece). AHHH!!! I looked around, underneath it and behind it – and then I called Geoff, who uses the copy machine WAY more than I do. Thank goodness it’s Labor Day and no one’s here. After sufficient mocking and trying to figure out a way to find the receipt, Geoff finally found the lever to pull the two pieces apart and rescue my valuable receipt. Yay!

Stuff to blog about...

Alright, finally I have some stuff to blog about. The house we were looking at back in April is still on the market - I have kept my eye on it, so I was aware that it was. My realtor emailed me 2 or 3 weeks ago letting me know, and I asked her to see if the seller would consider a contingency at this point - nope. Apparently he had received another offer that was quite low, but those buyers were "back and more serious now". Okay. Well probably 4 days later the listing price was lowered by about $15K (this was the first time he'd lowered his price in the past 4 months - I'd been watching for that, because I figured it'd be a sign he was more desperate). Hmmm.... looks like those buyers didn't quite work out now. So I asked my realtor to go back again to see if he'd take a contingency now. Sure enough, she came back and said that yes, he would entertain a contingency now (as Momlie said - "what, like do a song and dance for it?"). Oh my! We weren't really expecting that. So we deliberated over it for a couple of days, and then decided we're going to go for it. :) We asked a different realtor to come over on Friday night to tell us what we needed to do to put our house on the market - he walked through and made several suggestions (obvious stuff - touch up paint, put away pictures, put bark dust out, etc.) and we spent the weekend doing that. Our house looks fantastic now - we just have to finish up the mopping/sweeping/dusting/vacuuming etc. part of stuff and it will be picture perfect. I'll try to take some pictures tonight to post on the blog. You know me though - so don't hold your breath! So this week I need to get a pre-approval letter (our other one was only dated for 30 days, but he said he could give me a new one easily, he wouldn't have to run our credit again for 6 months so that's nice) and then I suppose we'll get in touch with the realtor we're buying with to see about making an offer. :) So crazy and random... but we are like that. We did decide (I think... again don't hold me to this...) that we're going to go ahead and sell our house whether this one works out or not. We can then live in our trailer until we find another suitable house. We weren't planning on selling for another 6 months to a year, but our selling agent told us that he is telling everyone to expect it to take 6 months to a year to sell - so that will actually work out perfectly (unless we're very lucky people and our house sells in some ridiculous time like 2 days... yeah right!). So no real action yet, but the plan for this week is: get pre-approval letter first, then make offer and put our house on market (not sure about the order for those two things... I suppose they may be somewhat simultaneous). Yikes. I've done the buying thing before but never the selling part... this should be interesting.

Here's a small funny from this weekend's house-beautify-a-thon:
Geoff: "Do you have one of those little handheld broom and dustpan things?"
Kelly: "Yup."
Geoff: "Can I borrow it?"
Hahahahaha. As though it is MINE only and I'm very protective about MY handheld broom and dustpan. That cracked us up for a good long while.

Other highlights of the weekend:
- Watching a Wildcat football WIN against Syracuse on ESPN2. There are very few things in the world better than college football!!!!!!!
- A fantastic shopping trip to Walgreens - my original total when they ran me up was around $70. After my coupons and rebates, my total ended up being -$18. Yes NEGATIVE!!! The best part is... while I was doing all of my deal hunting and gathering (I had a $10 off $40 coupon, so I had to make sure that I spent $40... and that was after all of my other coupons, so I had to do a lot of calculating... my shopping trip was slow!) Geoff was looking through the movie bin. As I was in the cosmetics section, he came up to me and said "you'll never guess what I found". I couldn't guess so he finally showed me - Blast From the Past! I've been looking for that movie for a couple of months, and no stores carry it since it's a little older. VERY exciting. It was $7.99 - but even that was included in my negative eighteen dollar total. :) So fun! I took a picture of all of the items I acquired. If I post house pics, maybe I'll include that one along with it.
- Went for a run Friday night and Sunday night. We are tentatively planning on doing the 5K Run Like Hell in October and 10K Smelt Run in February. So sore... but in reality I think that's from awkward positions cleaning this weekend (leaning over the bathtub cleaning miniblinds, scrubbing vertical blinds, patching nail holes in the walls, filling up the entire yard waste bin with weeds and clippings (okay I filled only like 75% of it - Geoff filled the other 25% with mowing the lawn), etc.)