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Nothing
new to report - just thought I'd let you know that you can still make
s'mores in the microwave even if you're out of graham crackers - try
them with Ritz crackers. The addition of peanut butter helped, too! I have to go wash my face now... |
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03-29-05
No pictures today! Can you believe it?!
More organizing today - and before you actually think that we're getting a lot done, we're not. It's more like shifting things around. See, when you Land in Canada, you have to have this document with you that states everything that you're bringing into the country, and the dollar amount.
So.
Picture everything in your house. Now imagine making a list of everything, and applying a value to it.
Unlike most moves where I throw stuff in a box and give an estimate of its contents and what room it belongs to, this time every box will say exactly what's inside the box. As will the corresponding paperwork. Meaning "junk drawer contents" won't work this time. This is positive in a way, though. Having photos in five different places in the house is stupid. Looking for scissors in any of the twelve places they could be is annoying. Using the bathroom cupboards for storage is strange. This has worked for the past 6+ years, but now I need to consolidate.
I left work early today with visions of grandiose organizing, only to get pelted with hail and huge gusts of wind on the way home, then once inside, it was about as dark as night, so I went to bed. I mean, what else could I do? I had just washed the sheets this morning! The cats were beckoning me!
Alas, there's more nights this week with absolutely nothing planned so I will be forced to get this all done at some point. Although.... Shane's back in town. Maybe we'll spend every night playing Settlers instead....
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03-27-05
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First,
a picture of Chris with some random dog in front of Coffee Crew Friday
morning. Then, my weekend involved the Packing of the Books, which turned out to be four boxes without even touching the books in the bedroom on the actual bookshelves. Also note that 1.5 boxes are unread books. I should become unemployed for a long long time just to get through all the books and DVD's that we have stockpiled. And I'm not complaining. We also went through our dining room built-in cupboards and cabinets and threw away a paltry one Hefty bag worth of stuff. I was hoping for more. Especially considering that this house is LOADED with built-in storage and dressers and shelves and cupboards, all of which we can NOT take with us. Not without using a sledgehammer, anyway. |
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 They had liver too |
Tonight
I made fried chicken livers and was very pleased. Amazingly, Sean
was able to stay in the house and even help me with the finishing
touches, even though he thinks that liver is a sign of the apocalypse.
After following this recipe,
he removed the liver and onions and removed some of the oil, then
whisked in some flour, white wine, and whipping cream and continued
to whisk until it reduced (it was a bit thick, I think next time we'll
skip the flour). Throw in some green onions and voila - supreme fried
liver and onions. And tomorrow I will test my office and gauge their
reaction as I microwave the leftovers and the smell wafts throughout
the space. Should be fun. For me. For all of you who hate liver as much as Sean does, I apologize if the above description made you vomit. • link |
03-25-05
Dad & Kay in the paper!
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03-24-05
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This
has been the longest week EVER. And it's still only Thursday night.
The taxe$ and the ultrasound didn't help, but really, I had enough
things scheduled this week to make it feel like a fast week.
But it just didn't work out that way. And after not posting for two
days? I have pictures of me walking the office
dog. Rita and I are lucky to work next to the UW Horticulture center, which is HUGE, and runs along the top of Lake Washington and the back of Husky Stadium. And when I'm having a particularly craptastic morning, we hit the trail. Which we did twice this week. I hope I snap out of this mood soon because it's doing quite a job on my shoes. TGIF indeed. (More packing this weekend!) |
 The trail to get there |
 Husky Stadium in the background (and ducks!) |
 Lake Washington in the background |
 Funky plants! |
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03-22-05
| Internet,
my uterus. Uterus, internet. It's fine, thanks. Turns out I'm one of those freaks who have Mittelschmerz, or your basic "painful ovulation". (Which I Googled, by the way, and found this site, only to see later that the website is called babyhopes.com. Sheesh.) The dude (yes, a dude this time) who did the ultrasound was very nice, telling me that everything looked perfect, asking me where I am on my cycle and when the pain came back. Since my cycles are so short that could explain why I've had it a few times now. Duh. Also? I still find it totally fascinating that I'm seeing stuff on the inside of me. Speaking of interiors, go congratulate Elfcakes, our newest Blogger-Mommy-To-Be! • link |
 "Hi" |
03-20-05
Weekend Re-Cap
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Shane
and Dave left Thursday night as we were sitting down for dinner (the
one where I told Sean "This is one of my most favorite meals
ever" - the one I blogged about last time) - they headed up to
Vancouver to rehearse, then were planning to drive overnight to Edmonton
to play a gig the next evening. Rock'n's (oooh that's funky typin')
drummer quit the band and Shane had to learn all the songs. That night.
Between road trips. Friday night was Meredith's Housewarming Party, which I realized around 9:30 as I was rolling my molasses cookie dough into balls to put into the oven. I was very distraught about this, as I had the appointment written in THREE different calendars. |
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Saturday morning was the usual knitting meet-up that we have at Starbucks. Sylvia taught Eleanor how to knit! And she picked it up quite well! Natasha also joined us, as well as Maggi's sister Olivia. We had a pretty good group. People *always* watch us and then ask us about knitting. |
 About 1/8 of them |
The
remainder of Saturday (seriously - like the next SIX HOURS) involved
Sean and I dragging out ALL of our CD's and organizing them so they
could be packed. While this sounds like an ordinary task, consider
the HUNDREDS of blank CD's that we have that aren't labeled. Or maybe
have my initials on them. Or, say, a date. Now don't have them in
any cases. Now have the music CD's all out of their cases and have
DIFFERENT CD's in the cases. Now throw about 30 data discs
in there, unlabeled, for fun. Now sit at your computer and
play EVERY CD to be sure you have the songs you want, then burn the
songs you want, then transfer them to the server stereo, then import
them into Music Match. FOR SIX HOURS. EACH. THEN DECLARE THAT YOU HATE ALL MUSIC. We have about twenty CD's to sell, and another maybe ten CD's with no cases and ten cases with no CD's. And three, full, packed boxes of music CD's. Speaking of selling CD's, can someone explain to me why I *can't* give up Jody Whatley or PM Dawn? It's like instinctual or something. Every five years or so I'll ask "Why do I still have this?" and then I'll pack it again. Don't even get me started on the cassettes that I'm keeping. |
 Upon Waking |
 Last beard pic |
 The usual goatee |
 Stripes |
 Fu Manchu |
 Moustache |
 Rosebud Brunch |
This
morning was brunch with Meredith at the Rosebud. Man oh man do they
have a good brunch. She got the apple & brie omelet and I got
the berry stuffed french toast. After brunch we met with Maggi to
shop at Stitches
(where I signed up for a sewing class in May) and then we went to
Toys In Babeland because, well, it was right next door. And it's TOYS IN BABELAND. What a learning experience that was. Some of it is so pretty! I even called my Mom and told her about the glass ones. She said I should put them on my next Christmas Wish List. HA! After this excursion Sean and I hunkered down and did our taxes. The 1040 said we owed $2,200, the 1040A said we owed $1,065, and the 1040EZ said we owed about $900 if we filed |
 When it's time to do our taxes, we like to drag out our dead cat - you know, for luck. |
separately,
and we said "WINNER!" and filed with the 1040EZ. Obviously
neither of us had enough withheld from our paychecks last year. Even
I owed $267, even though I made a whopping TWENTY
GRAND for the whole year. And that's before taxes (I was
still part-time at JA until June). Looks like the IRS doesn't think
that we're *quite* broke enough. After getting depressed over the taxes, we headed over to the Setterbergs to pay rent (Yayy! Paying Rent!!) and they were having guests over for dinner, so of course we pulled up a chair. Wayne was Nick's first hockey coach, and during Nick's FIRST GAME, when Nick was FIVE, Wayne was penalized by a ref and he had to put someone in the penalty box. |
 Us & The Setterbergs |
 Wayne & Barb |
The rest of the conversation revolved around making fun of Canadians. Which is funny, until I realized that I'M going to be the token American in a matter of months. I need to work on my Canadian accent...
After we took the family picture (Seth's home for Spring Break!) we were going to leave, but then they sliced up Barb's cheesecake and there was NO LEAVIN' NOW. Holy cow that was a delicious cheesecake - she had a pureed raspberry sauce to go with it and Maureen and I shared a second piece. Then Sean and I came home and had Hamburger Helper for dinner.
The end.
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 Mom & Coal |
 Dad & Coal |
03-18-05
Dinner
Last night Sean made Beef Medallions with Cognac Sauce and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes, and it was so good I licked
And Sean.
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03-15-05 pm
 Lauren, Todd, Andrew, Me, Alison, Lauren Todd, Marc |
This
was us this morning. I was so excited about my new shoes that I actually
wrapped my leg around Marc to display one (as Todd graciously points
it out). Seven hours, people. SEVEN HOURS. That's how long it took
for me to get my heel caught between some concrete blocks at work
and gouge out a chunk of the red vinyl. I was so, so sad.
I seriously had to stop and think: these are man-made, made in China,
$40 shoes. Get over it. But I still went into the office to ask Caitlin
for a hug (I've done this to her before - I just need to walk up and
say "I need a hug" and she wraps her arms around me and
says "ohhhhh". She's going to be a great Mom). And of course
we had clients in a meeting right by my desk as I angrily took off
the shoe and used it to point while gritting through my teeth "the
stupid #*@!& construction of this !*@&*# building...."
(No, JA did not design or build our office building.) Then Ray walks up and says "Okay, what's wrong?" because he heard me hissing and saw me pointing with my new shoe and I said something about being 34 and still not responsible enough for a $40 pair of shoes. It was a sad scene. |
 The scuff |
 The chunk of my shoe still on the brick |
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03-15-05
 Chicken, asparagus, and penis-shaped pasta |
 Meredith & Maggi |
 Toothy Shane |
The
power went out! For like half an hour! When I got home from knitting night at Maggi's (OMG the dinner and desserts were fabulous), Sean informed me that Shane and Dave were on their way. Then they showed up. Then the power went off. For the third time. It wasn't just us - it was the whole block. And of course this happened twice while Sean was right in the middle of burning a DVD. We had a good time lighting candles and trying to be spooky, and it was all a big game until Sean reached for his glass of red wine and it spilled on the living room rug. And we couldn't see it very well. We blotted what we could and it still remains under a heap of salt. Meaning: that's the end of the living room rug. Grandma & Grandpa got it for us at IKEA like the second we moved here. Grandpa liked it because it created a bright white path to the couch (he's pretty much blind). That rug was good to us. Shane and Dave are only here until tomorrow which is nice because I'm already SOooooo tired. (We stayed up too late last night.) |
 Taken when the power was out! Wow! |
 Dave |
 The rug. Sigh. |
 Did I actually take a picture right before the wine spilled?!? |
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