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.