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.)

Catching up...

Back from camping - we had a FANTASTIC time. I believe this was my favorite camping trip ever - Friday night was clear enough to look up at the stars and listen to the new Phil Wickham CD as well as a David Crowder CD I've had for 4 or 5 years. It was perfect! Saturday we had a lovely campfire and I made way too many marshmallows. :)

Safety Tip of the Day: In any disaster or emergency situation, use your vehicle only when absolutely necessary. Do not go sightseeing. Keep the streets clear for emergency vehicles and relief efforts.
REALLY?!?!?! I was always under the impression that during a tornado was the best time to go sightseeing. I love my safety calendar. :) It really straightens me out!

Last night for dinner we had Pioneer Woman's Not Your Granny's Mac & Cheese. Spicy, but delicious! Great flavors. I love Pioneer Woman - I don't remember where I read about her, but she is hilarious and has great sounding recipes. Last night was the first one I'd tried, but it was fantastic. We biked to the grocery store to get the ingredients beforehand - I love biking, and yesterday was the perfect weather for it.

I had soy milk in my coffee this morning. I've been wanting to try it, so I took the plunge. It was alright.

Check this out - http://houston.craigslist.org/dmg/813229270.html. I know that link will be gone in a week, but here's the gist - "We were looking for a domestic helper to assist a soon to be expecting mother (February 2009) to start ASAP."
First of all - we "were"??? Then why are you posting on Craigslist if you're not still in need? Anyway, my bigger issue is what is with the "soon to be expecting mother"? Typically people just say "expecting mother". And if they're trying to say expecting soon, that's different than soon to be expecting. It makes it sound like she's going to be pregnant soon, but is not yet. And even if they ARE trying to say she's expecting soon - she's not really. It sounds like she just started her second trimester. Ahh, I digress....

A few more tidbits

Sunday I wasn't feeling well so I was just taking it easy. I browsed through games.com, as they sometimes have some fun games (they used to have Monopoly which was super fun) and I hadn't looked at it in a while. I saw a game saw Solitare Race so I clicked on it to play, took the tutorial, and started to play. I was like "what is going on here?" and Geoff looked over and said "HEY, that's Nerts!", which is a game that his family loves to play. I had played only once a couple of years ago and didn't remember much, so Geoff leaned over and gave me pointers on what to do and how to play. Once I got the hang of it, he started playing against me (we both played online with Computer 1 and Computer 2 as the other two players - quite fun! - let us know if you want to play with us online sometime). We played again a couple of times last night too, and I'm the reigning champion between the two of us right now. So fun!

I have been cooking lots of great things with veggies from my coworker's garden - I made zucchini bread Sunday night and balsamic vegetables last week. I've also started using the basil I've been growing. YAY.

Phil Wickham recorded a live CD at our church early in July and it's now available to be downloaded (for free if you agree to sign up for his newsletter). I've been listening to it today and it's so cool to think that the voices are the voices of my church. :) We weren't able to go, and I can't remember why now (we may have been camping), but I've heard it was just an amazing amazing night!

Half Birthday

Today is my half birthday! I know, no one over the age of 6 should celebrate a half birthday, but I have ever since high school. (noted it, not so much "celebrated" it) My friend Laura's real birthday is on August 18, so we always sort of joked that we were half-birthday twins (almost). I remember her birthday because it's the day before my half birthday, and she remembers my birthday because it's the day after her half birthday. Works for us! :)

I don't think I wrote about the Eco Party last week, but it was fantastic. A great dialogue, and I learned a lot. #1 take home point: you cannot recycle any cardboard that has been used in the freezer (frozen entree boxes, frozen pizza boxes, ice cream containers, popsicle boxes, etc!). They have a waxy coating on them to make them freezer-friendly, and as a result they are not able to be recycled. Very interesting!

My latest crazy idea (that has loosely stemmed from the Eco Party, though I've thought about it for months) is buying a side of beef. Geoff, the greatest omnivore in the world, LOVES the idea. Ever since I mentioned the idea, a typical conversation has gone like this:
Kelly: "What should we have for dinner tonight?"
Geoff: "I don't know, but if we had a side of beef I'm sure we could figure something out!!!!!"
It's very entertaining! There are quite a few local ranchers around here that will do it, and a handful of them have representation at the Portland Farmer's Market, so we're going to go next weekend to check it out. If we did it, we probably wouldn't do it until the spring (some ranchers do it monthly, some only a couple of times a year).

We're camping again this weekend - this trip will be the debut of the indoor/outdoor carpeting AND our new bike rack thingy that we bought (actually we have had a bike rack, but it's hitch based. Since our trailer is in our hitch when we're camping - imagine that - it doesn't work. So we bought this little hitch adapter thingy that hooks onto our camper bumper and makes it a hitch that we can put our bike rack in. fancy.)

I love the Olympics. But they make me sleepy. That is all!

Another yard-related issue

So Geoff and I are little gardeners this year - as you may recall, we planted basil, tomatoes (2 plants), and peppers (2 plants). The basil did great indoors and has been thriving since we moved it outdoors. One pepper plant died almost immediately, and the other is hanging on. It doesn't look great, but it's alright. The tomatoes are FANTASTIC. They are big and beautiful and have tons of teeny tiny little green tomatoes all over them.

However, we have ivy. Everywhere. It is crawling over the fence from our neighbors - both behind us and to the side of us. It's even crawling up our next door neighbor's HOUSE. We stay on top of it and keep it out of our yard/plants/fence as much as possible - we're out there all the time combatting the ivy. I guess our neighbor decided enough is enough, because last week when my mom was here he was out there spraying. My mom went out there to get the mail and he said "be careful, this chemical is very strong" (he was in coveralls and a respirator). YIKES. But he's kind of a strange guy, so it's not too surprising. Anyway, a few days later we look at the ivy on their side and it is dead dead dead. As I was out there working in our yard yesterday, I saw that the ivy on our side has little spots on it. Then I looked at our tomato and peppers plants - they have little spots on them too!!!!!

It appears that some of his chemical (I have no idea what it was) got on our tomato and peppers plants too. It's been on there for 9 - 10 days I'd say, and the plants overall still look good - just some spotting on the leaves. So to my green-thumbed readers, I ask: Is there anything we can/should do for them? Are they going to make it? Or should we just keep hoping that they will get through this tough time in their little plant lives?

More randomness

Yesterday as Geoff and I were leaving work, a fella in my group stopped us in the hallway. Apparently, Geoff had done a favor for him sometime last week, and the guy told me "Kelly, he's perfect." I laughed, and he went on, "When he helped me take care of that thing, I thought 'gosh, he made that process so painless when it could have been so difficult, he was so friendly, and he just really took care of things.' Then someone told me 'You know, that's Kelly M's husband' and I said NO WAY!!!!!" Hahaha. Very funny, Tom. Yes, Geoff is kind and helpful and great, and I'm just mean and undeserving. I know.

I have this urge to go swimming so I'm going to the gym pool on Saturday. However, I'm worried that every other gym member has the same urge due to the Olympics. I'll test my theory this weekend.

Lest anyone think our parents forgot our anniversary, my parents, Christine, and Abel sent us a couple of items off of our registry. When we got home from work/shopping/dinner on Monday, there was a large black tube sitting on our front porch. I thought "WHAT in the world?" I figured it was probably related to our anniversary, and probably from Geoff's parents, although I had a couple of other friends I could think of that may have dropped something off. Geoff was going to go get the mail (we have a "community" mailbox) and I told him I'd wait for him to investigate. He walked in the house after getting the mail and said "I figured it out!!!" I said "how?" He said "I saw the corner". Hmm... corner... odd. So we went outside - indoor/outdoor carpeting. OF COURSE!!!! A fabulous camping gift from Geoff's parents. Along with a CARD with several inside jokes in it. When we go camping, we always check out everyone else's setups - a lot of people have mats / rugs / carpets / etc. that sort of make a "front porch" in front of the camper. That way they can walk outside in bare feet and they don't track as much in the camper, and now we have our very own giant piece of indoor/outdoor carpeting for the camper. We are blessed.

When we went to Beau and Kendra's a couple of weeks ago for dinner, they pointed out a new ceiling fan they'd installed that day. It looked great! Then they said it was $40 at Home Depot and I was sold. I went the next day and it was marked down to $32!!!!! Even better. I bought it and Geoff installed it yesterday. When he was done, he called me into the room (our bedroom) and showed it to me. It is great - except it doesn't have a light. I didn't even THINK about a light. So it's a little annoying walking into our room and flipping on the light switch and not getting light, but we'll get used to it. We have these nice "spotlight" things for our bookshelf that we never use, so Geoff turned those on last night. And it's SO worth the trade off of the fan - I love ceiling fans. They are in every other bedroom in our house but ours, so now we've joined the fun.

This weekend I was thinking "gosh, my hair sure is annoying. I need a haircut". On Monday a coworker said "are you growing out your hair?" and I said "NO!!! I was just thinking I should get it cut". Then yesterday a coupon for Great Clips came in the mail, and I took that as a final sign and got my hair cut. It looks awesome - she did such a great job. I'm very pleased.

Going along with my haircut and with Geoff in the attic for hanging the fan and in the crawlspace for running speaker wire, I realized that I should take more pictures. I need to come up with a system for organizing my pictures first (I have a system I just haven't taken many pictures in the past 4 years - yes that long - so it needs to be udpated) and then maybe I'll start. MAYBE. I'm not committing to anything yet.

We are going to an Eco Party tonight. A friend of mine just finished up the Master Recycler program, so as part of his volunteer hours he put together this little gathering. Geoff is nervous we/he are/is going to be shunned for not being green enough. I told him our cloth napkins will keep us in the in crowd. ;-) Not to mention that my friend went to Georgia Tech (where my brother in law Trevor goes to school) and his wife went to Northwestern, so that alone makes them cool people. I'm looking forward to it! Just have to finish up my homework now - a little survey about what types of things we do and don't do to reduce our carbon footprint.

9 minute blog of randomness

I have 9 minutes before a meeting so I'm going to see what I can get down on "paper" here.

- Yesterday was our first anniversary. YAY!
- To celebrate, we spent a night downtown Saturday night. We had a FANTASTIC dinner (easily top 5 ever) on Saturday night at Lucy's Table. So tasty.
I had:
Small plate: Goat Cheese Ravioli Brown Butter Sauce, Pecorino Romano, Crispy Shallots & Pancetta
Large plate: Catch of the day – Swordfish in a corn and prawn bisque. So it was on top of a little bit of the bisque, with chunks of corn, prawn, zucchini, red onion, and crispy potatoes.
Dessert: Boca Negra - Moist Warm Flourless Chocolate Cake, Whipped Cream & Nut Florentine
Geoff had:
Small plate: Pomegranate Glazed Baby Back Pork Ribs Manchego Cheese
Large plate: Black Pepper Crusted “Cascade Natural” Beef Rib-Eye – it had some fries and some other stuff with it, I don’t remember exactly what.
Dessert: Also can't remember the name, but it was like a custard with berries type thing. Delicious.
It was pricey, BUT they have a "social hour" Monday - Friday from 5 - 6:30 where everything (drinks and food) are 1/2 price. So we will be back!
- We have this Japanese Maple tree/bush/thing in our front yard that has been there since I moved in 3+ years ago. Apparently the previous owner loved it and pruned it and took care of it and babied it daily. I, on the other hand, have not touched it in 3 years. It's looking a little out of control (little = LOT), so this morning I googled "japanese maple prune" and came across a message board where someone was saying they purchased a house with a Japanese Maple and they had no idea what to do with it. Someone suggested that since they retail for around $1000 that they sell it back to a nursery. I thought NO WAY, you can't just sell a tree back to a nursery. So I googled "japanese maple sell to a nursery" and came up with a bunch of junk. Then I remembered the greatness that is Craigslist, so I looked up in the for sale section there and came up with a several - this is one of the first things I came up with. I figure I can sell it on Craigslist for several hundred dollars, have someone else come haul it away, and then I won't have to worry about pruning it and I can just find something else to put where it was. MUCH easier than actually doing the work to prune it. ;-) Genius.
- Geoff has been shopping for surround sound the last several months, so I've been tagging along with him to various electronic store type places. The other day at Best Buy, there was a floor model marked down to $550. Geoff asked what the best price the guy could give on it was, and he said "$550! Are you kidding? That's a $900 system!". My response was of course laughter - perhaps a brand new system in the current model year that hadn't been sitting on the floor of Best Buy for over a year being touched and fiddled with and handled and scratched may have originally RETAILED for $900 - but that doesn't make it "worth" $900 - it's only worth what someone will pay for it. SO entertaining. So after some more research, Geoff was finally ready to make his purchase. Yesterday we went to Fry's and he bought what he wanted. There were two salesmen - we'll call them Boris and Doris. Boris says "do you want the warranty on this? It's only $10 for an extra 5 years". Geoff says no, and Doris says "do you know the subwoofer is only warrantied for 90 days". I of course laughed again - wow, that's really standing behind your product to warranty it for a whole 3 months. Costco will stand behind their electronic products for 2 years. (you may ask why we didn't purchase from Costco then - Geoff wanted something very specific and we've been stalking Costco for it for months and they haven't had it) Anyway, then Boris logs off the computer and Doris says "hey, log back on" - which Boris does. HELLO, you have a personal log-on ID/password for a reason - so other people don't use your account. Then, we're checking out and Boris said "you are getting such a killer deal, a $X system for only $Y". Which just CRACKED ME UP AGAIN!!! AHHHHHHH!!!! You're selling it for $Y. It's worth $Y. So then I just started walking through Fry's saying (rather loudly) "LOOK!!! A $20,000 TV for $800!!! What a deal!" Customers were turning their heads, and Geoff was pretending to be embarassed that his psycho wife was yelling in Fry's, but he was laughing too. Hehehehe. I just love how these salesmen try to convince me of when I'm getting a "deal". Trust me, buddy, I know if it's a deal or not a deal and don't need you to tell me. I know they're only doing their job and I can appreciate that and certainly understand that these are effective techniques, but they're just hilarious to me. :)

My chop-happy doctor

Warning: You might want to skip this one if you're squeamish. It's not super gory, but it is a "medical" one.

I think I've seen my dermatologist 5 times over the course of the past 2 years. EVERY SINGLE TIME I'VE GONE TO HER she has chopped something off. The first time was because I had a skin infection, the second and third were moles (part of the same mole actually, it came back irregular so she wanted to "dig a little deeper"). I didn't see her for about a year and a half, then went back a month or so ago for another skin infection. She again chopped something off, a little piece of the infected area to biposy it. That turned out to be a staph infection. So I went back Tuesday for a recheck of that and a skin check (just because I have so many moles, I like to have them checked every year or two). Before I went in, I told my mom that I was guaranteeing that she would chop something off. Sure enough, she found what she thought was a "ruptured cyst" on my back that looked funny and she wanted to biposy. So off it went. My mom couldn't believe it!

They called today with the results - benign. But it gets better. They said it was a clogged pore showing some inflammation, which is consistent with a bug bite. SHE TOOK A BIOPSY A BUG BITE!!!! Hehehehe. :)

In all seriousness, I'm not complaining. I think she's a FANTASTIC doctor, one of my favorites, and I'm very glad she's so cautious and conservative. But it's still funny that she hacked off a bug bite.

Mom blog!

The last week has been a great whirlwind of activity!

Thursday night Geoff and I had dinner at Kendra and Beau's, then went downtown to a silent art auction. It was quite fun. :) After that, we picked my mom up from the airport - the timing worked out perfectly.

Friday after work, Geoff and I took both of our moms camping. We went to Ocean Park Washington to the Ocean Park Resort. We had been thinking about renting an "annual site" there (meaning that you pay a flat rate for an entire year and leave your RV there, so it almost becomes a vacation home). There are pros and cons to this: pros are having amenities every time you go (pool, cable, wifi, etc.), lower cost, getting to know an area really well, getting to go to the coast every time, etc. Cons are being restricted on where you go, having to drive a couple hours every time to get there, exposing your RV to the salty ocean air all year, etc. We got there and the park was much more run down than we thought. Actually, we figured it might be run down, but because of all the rules we read about annual sites, we thought they'd be pretty nice. Well turns out that those are only the rules for the NEW annual sites - not the ones that have been there 21+ years (yes, the owner has owned it for 21 years and some folks have been there longer than he has). The owners were VERY nice and the town was really cute, but we eventually decided it wasn't for us. If nothing else, at least we got to see Jake the Alligator Man while we were there!

Monday and Tuesday I took the days off of work and just had fun with my mom. Geoff made wings one night, we did lots of shopping, played lots of games and worked on a puzzle, etc.

Tonight we are going out to dinner with my mom and Geoff's parents at On the Border in pre-celebration of our one year wedding anniversary (which is actually on the 11th). On the Border is where we had our rehearsal dinner, and it JUST came to Oregon (actually it's in Vancouver, WA, just north of Portland) so this is perfect. I'm very excited!

This weekend Geoff and I are going to go downtown for a night and do some shopping and have a nice dinner for our own little anniversary celebration. Yay! :)

Quite a morning!

So this morning Geoff and I got up early, got all ready, and headed to the camper (which is parked 5 or 10 minutes from our house). Just as we are pulling into the parking lot where it is stored, I realize neither of us grabbed the box where we keep all of the trailer keys and accessories. UGH. So we head back to the house, with me fretting about being late to work, how could I be so careless, etc. I was very upset/annoyed about it. Well the Nearly Impossible Question is playing on the Fish, and they are giving a clue. The question was "the average homeowner spends 3 days a year doing this". And I said "yardwork" which Geoff thought was not right. And I said "well it really depends - do they mean some portion of 3 different days over the year, or do they mean like 72 cumulative hours throughout the year?" So people call in and guess things like "mowing the yard" "cleaning out the gutters", etc. Those aren't right, and they give a clue - "you're not actually DOING the physical work." I yell "CALLING REPAIRMEN!!!" and Geoff was like "really? I don't think so". Then I said "WAITING FOR REPAIRMEN TO COME TO YOUR HOSUE!!!!" and grabbed the phone and dialed. The first time it started ringing. It rang 6 or 7 times and then Pete picked up. I stated my answer and they said "YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!" Yay for me. :) Pete asked me some questions about where I work, my weekend plans, etc. I won a gift card to a Mexican restaurant on the Eastside of Portland and tickets to the Oregon State Fair! They are going to mail them to me. :) That cheered me RIGHT up. Then we called Geoff's mom, since she goes to work at the same time as us, so we could tell her to listen to me on the radio. It was VERY edited - I was surprised, because it wasn't when I won in January. And it was flawless too, it sounded like a real conversation but they had taken several chunks out. So both Gary and Julie got to hear me on the radio. I'm so awkward on the radio - I get all flustered and shakey and sound dumb. But that's okay, I LOVE winning the Nearly Impossible Question. Now just 30 days until I can do it again!

What do you think of this?

When we were in Dallas I saw a Hyatt Place hotel - I had never seen one of those before. I LOVE their logo. I am thinking of painting a canvas to hang in our house that uses their logo, only instead of the two black dots (that are put there to make the logo look more like an H, I assume) I'm thinking pink for one and brown for the other. Thoughts?

Geoff's new collection

A year or so ago, Geoff decided he wanted to start collecting liquor bottles. I suppose this is because he thinks they look cool. Well, being the big drinker that he is, he's collected ONE in the past year.

My mom is coming into town tomorrow for a week (YAY!) and so we're going camping (we = Mom, Momlie, Geoff, and me). We were talking about having chicken fajitas for dinner one night, and I said that I bought a 5 pound bag of limes from Costco (they're part of the marinade for the fajitas). I froze some of them - I don't know if you can freeze limes, but we'll see what happens to them. So then we came up with the idea of having margaritas with the fajitas, since that would help use some of the limes.

Well the next day Momlie shows up with Margarita in a Bag. These things look so fun! I'm very excited to try it. Of course, they won't actually help use the limes, but we can always use them for garnish. ;-) I thought we had some tequila at home, so I said I'd either bring it or buy some.

So we went to the liquor store on Monday (in Oregon the liquor stores are all state run, you have to buy liquor from them, no grocery stores or anything) and bought some tequila. I mentioned something about how cute I think the little tiny .5 ounce airplane bottle are and Geoff got all excited. "I DIDN'T KNOW THESE EXISTED!!!!!! These are the cutest things ever! I think I'm going to change my collection to all little bottles!" I laughed and made fun of him - maybe no one else knows that these little bottles exist either, but my grandparents went on tons of trips when I was younger and always brought back those little bottles from the airplane, so I remember seeing them around their house. This happened on the way out, and I asked him if he wanted to back and buy one as long as we were there, but he said no. Well later when we got home, I remembered that when I went to Mexico I brought back a little box of 3 tiny tequilas (the small versions of these in this picture). So I gave those to him to start his collection, and he was very happy.

So I also thought we had triple sec at home, but it didn't matter if we didn't because the bag says it's optional. Turns out we didn't, and Geoff was like "I'll go back to the liquor store and get some!!!!!!!!!!" I was like "um... we don't really need it". Geoff: "Puh-leeeeeeaaaaaassssseeeee!!!! I want my little bottle." Haha. Okay. So he went and got triple sec. But he came home SO SAD because apparently the liquor store he went to didn't sell little bottles. :( So we went back to the original liquor store and he got a tiny bottle of tequila and a tiny bottle of Grand Marnier, which was the closest thing they had to triple sec in the little bottles. (Geoff asked about triple sec and the guy suggested the Grand Marnier). He has decided to collect the "matching" little bottle to whatever he is buying from the liquor store at the time. So now that he has his 5 bottle collection (3 from Mexico, 2 from yesterday), it may only take him another year or two to get to 6. :) They are very cute though, and they are a perfect little stocking stuffer for him. I just think it's hilarious that my non-drinking husband is obsessed with liquor bottles. AND that he's been to the liquor store 3 times in the past 2 days, which is easily more than he's ever been cumulatively in his whole life up until that point.

Good luck with that

As stated yesterday, I wrote the "e-help" line for the hospital where I get my Remicade to complain about the shortening of hours. I heard back from them today:

Hello Kelly, I am sorry I cannot help you. You would have to contact the infusion center at . Perhaps they could suggest an alternative foryou. I will forward your email to quality management. Thank you for using the eLine.

I replied:
Thanks for your reply. The Infusion center said that they had no control over it, the hours were set by hospital administion. Do you have contact information for the St. Vincent hospital administration?

The response?
Hello Kelly,
That number would be 503 XXX-XXXX. Good luck with that. You may also hear from the quality management people.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I love it. "Good luck with that" - even she knows my case is absolutely hopeless. :)

Remicade is good :)

I'm at my once-every-8-weeks Remicade appointment. They are doing a pilot with shorter hours (I used to come around 4:30, today I have to come at 2:30). I don't like it! Different staff, more crowded parking lot and hospital, had to wait 30 minutes to even be called in, and on top of it all I had to miss work.

On the plus side, there is wireless internet and cable TV here, so I can't complain much. I was able to log on and work remotely. I can also use my cell phone, although the reception here isn't the best - I was talking to someone from work and they were having a hard time hearing me. Still, I got a lot done.

I was talking to some of the nurses about the whole "fewer hours" thing and THEY HATE IT! They said if I wanted to, I could write to the administration, so I did that immediately. Even one or two nights a week would be much more accommodating to those of us sickies who work during the day. We'll see. :)

Quick rundown

It's been a while. Don't hate me.

3 weekends ago: Dallas for waterparking, seeing cousins/aunts/uncles, geocaching, spending time in the pool, relaxing, hanging out with Mom/Dad/Christine/Abel, church, dominoes, helping my parents out with a few projects, seeing the pastor who married us (she was VERY excited to see us), eating at all of my favorite Texas places, etc.

2 weekends ago: Camping for marshmallow competitions, geocaching, dominoes, eating delicious meals, peeping on other campers, campfires, movies, hanging out with Momlie/Gary/Rebecca, checking the lug nuts, installing things, etc.

this weekend: Staying local for talking to my mom, lunch and shopping with Geoff, Rebecca's going away party, dominoes, Nascar, Northwestern alumni freshman send off party, etc.

It's been busy and fun! :) This weekend I *think* my mom is coming into town and we are going camping with Momlie and Mom. Hehehe. Should be an excellent time.

And I leave you with this conversation I had with "myself" this morning (it was in an IM but never responded to):

Kelly: Perhaps I should run for a local public office.
I'm 26 now.
So I can do local stuff for a term.
Then state.
Then senate.
And by the time I'm 35 I can run for president.
Wait.
I forgot that I don't care about politics that much and that I don't want the media to ruin my life.
Nevermind. Scratch that entire plan.

Education!

So for the past 4 years I get occasional skin issues that pop up - rashes and infections and things. Never been quite able to figure out what causes them, just figure I have weird/sensitive skin.

Recently I had a flare up of a rash I get occasionally, so I went to my dermatologist to check it out. She said there were actually patches of two different things - a little bit of psoriasis and a skin infection. She also mentioned that Remicade can cause various skin issues. She did a culture of the infected area, prescribed three medications (an oral antibiotic, a topical antibiotic, and a topical steroid), and sent me on my way.

I got the prescriptions and my skin was looking better and better over the weekend. YAY! I also did some research about Remicade and skin issues, and found that Remicade and several similar drugs (Enbrel, Humira) have been linked to skin issues - apparently, your risk for skin problems (infections, eczema, etc.) doubles and risk for skin cancer triples. I have been taking Remicade since 2002 and have had unexplained skin issues since 2004, so maybe that is what has been causing them! Maybe not, but at least now I can get Geoff to stop telling me I don't wash well enough. ;-)

The saga continues: yesterday I got a call from her office that my culture had tested positive for staph. Yikes! She had ever so casually mentioned that but I had pretty much forgotten about it, so I was pretty surprised when they said that. Happily, it is not MRSA (the drug-resistant staph) and since she already had me on all of the different medications I didn't have to change anything. It just feels weird to think I have/had staph. But again - Crohn's (not Remicade, but Crohn's itself) can cause a weakened immune system, which can lead to staph. Yay for my Crohn's. :)

So this morning, just by coincidence, I was perusing the manufacturer's websites of the medicines I'm taking. I happened upon a $15 coupon for one of them... and then a $20 coupon for another... - WHAT?!?! Are you kidding me? I asked Patrick (who works for a pharmacy benefits manager - basically the type of company that you get your prescription insurance through) if he is familiar with coupons for name brand drugs (which of course all of mine were) and if you can use the with insurance copays. He replied that yes, I could. So I started kicking myself for not knowing this ahead of time. I even googled something like "prescription coupons with insurance" to see how common this was and one of the google answers was a link to my favorite personal finance blog talking about how almost ALL prescription drug companies do this for their name brand (read: pricey!) drugs. It was before I started reading the blog, so I wasn't like I had read that before and forgotten about it, but STILL!

Then I checked the third prescription, just to see how much more I could have saved and should be kicking myself for. Praise of all praises, it had a $35 REBATE!!!!! Yes, that's right, REBATE!!!! Normally I'm a bigger fan of coupons than rebates (get your savings then and there, less hassle, etc.) but since I didn't know ahead of time this is great! Yes, I could have saved an extra $35 if I had known about the coupons, but $35 out of $70 potential savings isn't bad. Better than a kick in the shin, as my parents like to say - and better than nothing at all if I hadn't happened to look those medicines up.

So, the moral of the story is: if you're taking name-brand prescription drugs, look them up! For at least one of mine, the rebate is good on new and refill prescriptions. Could be some big savings for you. :)