Lapping everyone on the couch

My last post, i talked about all the changes that made the second half of my 2013 year SUCK. Needless to say, i wasn't focusing on ME at any point. I knew i was getting heavier and stress eating. So I avoided the scale and stairs like the plague.

About a week after Jon proposed, (so we're still back in November) we were scheduled to participate in a "get your numbers" health promotion which i was not looking forward to one bit. You go in, get poked and prodded and they give you your health numbers. Weight, BP, cholesterol, etc. Then counsel you on how to be healthy. Yeah, sounds like super duper fun, right?

But Jon wanted to do it especially with his workload he hadn't been taking care of himself either, and we both knew we needed and wanted to get our eating habits back in control. This would be a perfect opportunity to find our starting point. I put on a brave face, knowing my blood pressure numbers would make the nurse look at me in horrified shock. And indeed, he looked me square in the eye and said something cautionary about the variety of ways it could kill me too young.

But it wasn't until I got a reassuring look from Jon from across the room, that something clicked in my mind.

I'm getting married to this amazing man, and we only get the rest of our lives to be together. Do I want to cut that short?

Here was this future, that I had never considered the correlation with my health, staring me in the face. It wasn't all about getting thin for a wedding dress, though even I'll admit it's spurring some early extra effort. But my main reasons now are to live and spend as much time as possible with Jon. To be healthy enough to have children. Being healthy enough to help them grow and learn to be healthy as well.

I don't know why it took getting engaged for me to reach this realization. But, i hit my crossroads and turned to the harder path of weight-loss.

That week (still in November), i finally went to my doctor and to a local gym. In the past, I had dangerous collapsing issues. Aside from blood pressure, doctors couldn't figure out why it was happening. I tried to get my blood pressure under control, but i wasn't rich enough to handle the cost of multiple visits to the doctor. So i just tried to ignore it til it went away. Doctor Shiva-the-destroyer (she's scary when she's mad) seemed dubious that this time my resolve was real, but she started the process to control my blood pressure and approved me to start a workout regimen under a trainer's supervision.

The gym was all too happy to sign me up early before adding me to Jon's insurance. They assigned me a trainer named Ally, who was a former nurse, for a trial personal trainer session. She was one of those ladies that clearly has never been overweight and is determined to be your own personal cheerleader for the smallest things. I found her extremely annoying. Those "i know you can do it"s were just frustrating. My experience told me that just when i thought i was doing it, i would collapse, stop breathing, and probably konk my head on the way down.

She had me do a maneuver i had told her had caused tunnel vision in the past (my warning signal), so clearly something i already didn't want to do. And sure enough, i was breathing hard and very nervous when she got down on her knees in front of me and said "I'm right here, i'm not going to let anything happen."

I believed her. Really, truly, fundamentally BELIEVED her. For the first time, i felt i could trust a stranger to see just how much this scared me. I couldn't help myself, i started tearing up. We talked past our allotted time and she kept saying: "The hardest thing you have to do, is come back the next few times. Despite the soreness, despite the worry, despite the scheduling. Make it happen the next few times and it will start getting easier."

By that point i was so emotionally raw, that i was almost ready to believe her if she said the moon was made of cheese. Almost :). But it made sense, so i bit the bullet and committed to SIX MONTHS of the 1/2 hour trainer sessions 2x a week. I had gotten a promotion and a raise which certainly helped a LOT with the budgeting, but i knew i had to make it work. Plus the six months was now paid for so my frugal side was now determined to get my money's worth.

I wasn't sore after the first workout, but the second, third, fifth, tenth....oh yeah! I could barely move for the first month after every session and i was convinced my workouts were negated by the couch potato i was becoming because i was too sore to move. I complained incessantly to Jon about how i hated being sore every minute of every day in every place imaginable.

And it was HARD. Hard going in and watching fit women strut around in their workout bras and short shorts (Strange that even my perception of fit women has changed, I used to call them "twigs", so rude of me). Hard trying to find workout clothes in my size (come on, if we're supposed to get down to those sizes, give us cute clothes to start with!). Hard changing your eating habits from chocolate to dried fruit. Hard going into a yoga studio with 15 other thin people who don't know what it's like to have your boobs try to smother you in bridges or twist yourself into a pretzel with fat thighs getting in the way!

I don't know who you are, but you rock lady!

But with Ally's reminders at the end of every session "just come back", and the money already spent...i kept going in and teasing her about what new torture she had in store for me today. The first month, i thought i saw or felt a few changes, but it was nothing i could point at and say "it's gone!". The second month, i noticed that certain spots were less squishy, and i had bulges from muscles that were not there before. And then i realized recently, that i wanted more; I wasn't even tired after the 30 minute sessions. So i asked Ally for more butt-kicking.

It's been 3 months with Ally's ministrations and keeping my blood pressure in check.

• I'm just a few pounds shy of my first 20lbs
• I can do a full set of 10 pushups
• I can do almost 45 seconds of planks
• I'm not gasping for breath at the top of the stairs of our 3rd floor apartment
• I'm doing yoga weekly, increasing my flexibility and endurance
• I've only had 2 dizzy spells but no collapses. 
• My energy level has skyrocketed
• I can take my jeans off without unbuttoning
• Subsequently, I now require a belt
• Both Jon and I are eating healthier
• Co-workers have started commenting that i look like i've lost weight. 

In the scope of my goals, this is only the beginning. There's a long way to go and i'm thankful every day for Ally being my personal trainer and cheerleader. I'm thankful Jon is so supportive: Jon even signed up for his own trainer and regimen citing me as inspiration. "If you can do what you're doing with all the extra health crap on top...i have no excuse."

Don't think i've ever been someone's health inspiration before. It's still so tempting to eat a pint of ice cream, or an entire bucket of extra butter popcorn. It would be SO easy to just go back to ignoring it.
I don't think i'll ever WANT to workout over a netflix marathon. Or consider half a sandwich a meal. But it's becoming easier to make the choice for the healthier options.

For now, i know that i'm re-upping on the personal trainer sessions when the six months expires. I'm not confident enough to workout alone with the risk of collapsing still there. I'm thrilled to be seeing some tangible results, but I'm not satisfied yet. I never expect to be super thin or on the cover of a fitness magazine. Heck if i manage to make it to size 10, i'll be thinner than i've been since i hit puberty. Even if i'm never running around in a pushup bra and short shorts, just getting my body healthy will be enough for me. I just want to be healthy enough to live out my life.

Oh, and do the splits again. Yeah, that would be awesome at any weight.

Comparing my E-book Readers: Kindle 3G vs Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight

About a....well a while ago...i had the opportunity to play with a Kindle 3G for a "few months". A few months obviously turned into over a year.

Originally, i was supposed to only have it in order to learn how it works and then use what i learned to train my mom/sister. Except she didn't ask for it back, didn't think about it. I kept telling her, if you want it back i'll give it to you and she just kept saying "oh no no. You keep borrowing it. You're enjoying it."

Well, not to long ago, i was reminded that it wasn't actually mine. And mom started hinting about how nice it would be given her shoulder surgery to not have to try and lift heavy books. So i started researching to get my own e-book reading device. Cause once you go ebook, regular books just seem cumbersome and unappealing.

So i started looking around, playing with the available models whenever i saw them on display, and comparing them back and forth. 

Things i loved about the Kindle

• E-ink, ebooks, storage capacity, were all new to me so i loved them
• The ability to download straight from a store (as well as not directly from the store)
• Insane battery life for a month!
• The ability to read multiple books at once and have my spot saved in each of them
• Font and size changing options, orientation options

Things i didn't like about the Kindle

• The keyboard was useless for me and ended up being more trouble than it was worth. 
• The buttons on the side....That's where you're most likely to pick it up so who thought of putting the buttons there?! You're dumb.
• The creepy obnoxious screen savers. (I ended up having to hack the silly thing to get my own pictures on there. Amazon, that was one STUPID choice...can't you tell from 99% of all media devices from phones to laptop covers that people love to customize their wallpapers?)
• The list only format. I'm a visual person, and cover art is mostly how i remember books. So i would have loved an alternate view. 
• No built in light. I loved my DIY cover, but all the light options were very annoying and clunky, OR i would have to pay 50$ to get one that was reasonable. Either way, no. So i developed what Boyfriend Jon joking refers to as my "various reading light options".

I'm sure there were other things, but I got used to using the Kindle. It was my friend. But to be honest, i had little to no brand loyalty. I was just enjoying being able to carry many books at once anywhere to read almost anytime.

That is...until my new 

Nook Simple Touch with GLOWLIGHT! 

I can't believe it took this long for these competing companies to come up with a built in light. I don't know about the rest of the world, but most of my reading takes place just before i go to sleep. 

So i got not only every thing that i love about the Kindle....but each of the things i didn't like above...were taken care of by the Nook development team. Congrats to you guys for building a Ebook device that appeals to more than one kind of reader. 

I now have

• A touch screen with touch and swipe page turns (no keyboard or directional needed)
• One button for home, and just needs to be held down to turn on the glowlight.
• Cover Art thumbnail lists (or just lists if i wanted)
• Screen saver folders that don't need to be hacked in order to upload my pictures, and it's easy to turn off theirs.
• Built in wireless
• An awesome invention of the Glowlight...which i expect will become an industry standard very soon. 
• it's also great that they didn't have to sacrifice the battery life too much in order to achieve this technology. I should still get about a months worth of battery even if all i did was read at night.
• An online bookstore that's equal to Amazon's for the normal reader. 

This is a great device. And while it wasn't free...the 139 price tag was well worth it. Considering i would have paid that additional money to get one of those covers with a built in light....yeah, definetly worth the money in my opinion. 

Again, i don't have a strict adherence to brand loyalty, but rather go for the best fit for me. 

I read mostly at night, normal novels, not comics or articles, and i take these camping with me away from outlets. I didn't want a tablet...i have a perfectly good computer for that, and i have no intention of writing a report on this device. 

So for ME, the Nook was a much better choice. And the Kindle will find a happy home with my mother, i'm sure. 

And i can make the Halo over-shield sound effect every time i turn the glowlight on now. Cause i'm a dork like that. :)

The Apartment Re-Do

One of these days i'll get the hang of relaxing instead of working on the weekend. My arm muscles sure wish i would since they're protesting even the amount of moving needed for typing.

This weekend was the big re-do of my apartment. I have been sick to death of not being organized and having no where to put all the random stuff. My family has decided to do a garage sale next month and it's lighting a fire under me to get RID of everything in my house that i never use and have no idea what i was thinking when i got it.

Friday, I brought home the new headboard and went shopping at Walmart for new organizing stuff. Boyfriend Jon (aka sweetest boyfriend in the world) agreed to come over after he got off of work to help me put the bed together. I spent the remaining time covering paper ream boxes with contact paper. This ended up being so easy and the final product was awesome. They're still a little plain, but they look great and i can spruce them up anytime. Starting with making labels for them that aren't made out of post it notes.

Saturday, we finally took down my hanging bookshelf to make room for the much taller headboard and as soon as we put it in place, we started noticing something. It looked really high. I was undaunted, since i was certain that i had done my math correctly. Original 9 inch legs, plus ten inches of lift, plus an additional 10 inches for the mattress would just a little bit taller than my old bed had been (28 inches).

We pounded the stilts into place with my motorcycle boot for lack of a sturdy rubber mallet and then we put the frame together. Finally the mattress went on and Boyfriend Jon gave me a dubious look. It was REALLY tall. So we pulled out the tape measures. 32 3/4 inches tall. i was BAFFLED. How the heck did i mess that up? And then i realized, the ledge that the slats for the mattress to sit on is not the same as the bottom of the board. I totally missed it in my measurements. So after i kicked myself and called my dad to see what i should do. An hour later, Boyfriend Jon was holding on while i used a saws-all to lop off 3.5 inches from the bottom of the stilts. So much for my tricky foot cap that i made.

In the end, the bed looks awesome...maybe not against my Ikea nightstand and my filing cabinet/second nightstand. But it's getting there. Pretty soon i'll have some kind of theme in my bedroom.

Apparently however, my brain was not done working for the weekend. Because as soon as the bed was done, i was attacking the mess while Boyfriend Jon beat a wise and hasty retreat. I returned the storage bins i had bought on Friday and purchased ones of the right size since the stilt shrinkage. I also bought (and would end up returning and re-buying) drawers for my bathroom cabinet to organize there too. I spirited away all the winter coats, sweaters, and bulky linens that were piled high in the corners. I corralled all the miscellaneous items that had been underfoot for months. I sectioned off the living room into "Keep", "Trash", "Garage Sale", and "Clothes" and began depositing items accordingly. I couldn't walk through my kitchen due to the laundry basket of books and my bookcase. I even went through my pants, trying each one on to figure out which ones fit now and which ones had the promise of fitting without drastic weight loss.

I still have a mountain of clothes that need to be gone through and re-folded...my least favorite task, but at least I found several summer clothes i thought had mistakenly been donated. WIN!

When the dust settles in the next few days, i hope to have a clean and organized...and able to be kept that way, apartment.

The return from San Francisco

Of all the places i've visited, San Francisco is one of the few places where i think i could stand to live for a long period of time. Of course,  i know that i would pay through the nose for real-estate there, but when you're dreaming, such things don't matter. We did so much in such a short time, that i'll have to gloss over a lot of the interesting stuff just to give you a brief account. Yes, the following is brief. 

We arrived and were bussed to the Argonaut hotel right off of the end of Hyde street and Jefferson Street which was beautiful and spacious. The first thing we did was walk to Pier 39, enjoying the sights along the way and purchasing some trinkets. We signed up for one of the two hour long bus tours which our guide, Igor, told us all about everything from the new capital buildings ability to withstand a major earthquake, to how there are so many large families living in chinatown that they have to hang their undergarments out the window for them to dry. We saw the Golden Gate gardens and the bridge, took a lot of pictures, and finally got back to our hotel in time to change for dinner at Scomas on the waterfront a couple piers away.

This place was fancy! We had no less than a 5 course meal (six if you count the sourdough bread) which included the best Crab cakes I've had in California, Popcorn Shrimp that was juicy and crunchy at the same time, a salad or soup, an entrée (i had Pasa Alla Scoma- clams and pasta in a white wine garlic sauce- which had no less than 30 clams IN the Shell mixed in with my pasta) and finally a chocolate torte for desert, followed by a round of B52 shots to celebrate the end of their busy season. I am so glad that i wasn't footing the bill for that meal. But it was delicious. After that, i was beat so i went back and gratefully fell into my own queen size bed (which was exciting because i just bought a new queen size to upgrade from my double, so i got a bit of a preview). Lindsey went out to a Blues bar, Lou's on Pier 47, with some of her co-workers had a wonderful time.

The next day, we made our way to Alcatraz. The walk over to Pier 33 was wet, especially as we were waiting for our tickets. Someone turned on a fire hose, so since i had not gotten an umbrella when there was an opportunity, i got soaked, and ended up with one of the very fashionable plastic ponchos. However, once we loaded into the ferry and landed at Alcatraz, it was bright and sunny for the rest of the day. San Francisco might be the only city I've ever gotten both drenched and a sunburn in the same day. I loved Alcatraz. Between the audio tour, and latching onto a ranger tour, i learned things i had no idea bout before and found the prisoner's ingenuity completely intriguing. If you get a chance...it's worth every penny.

When we got back to the mainland, we ate at Bubba Gump's and then toured the area some more before i needed a break and went back to the hotel for a quick nap. Afterwards, we walked around the area some more and enjoyed some of the bread. I don't like sourdough, but the sourdough in San Francisco is to die for! I even took a loaf home. We went to bed comparatively early that night.

I woke up to the sounds of fog horns, and went outside to watch some of the fog burn off. After i met back up with Lindsey, we made our way to Girhidelli Square, had brunch at Buena Visa Cafe and toured the USS Pampanito Submarine. Then it was time to leave San Francisco which was sad.

San Francisco left (we stayed in the light gray building on the left which is marked with Blue Mermaid)

San Fransisco right. Featuring Pier 39 and the Alcatraz landing

I wish i had more pictures to share with you, but they're on my camera which is still buried in the pile of put away/take care of that I've been ignoring for the weekend in favor of California weather which we seem to have brought home. Since so much else has happened since I returned, i'll save my post trip adventures for another post.

Final pictures of Corset back

Finally have some pictures of the corset back!

What i would have done differently:

1. Used a thick ribbon or non stretch material to make the lace up chord
2. Had enough lacing to do every loop instead of every other
3. taken the loops up higher so the shoulder straps wouldn't fall off all night long
4. added some kind of stiffener to edges where the loops were so it wouldn't bunch
5. Made the modesty panel bigger and secured better

But, despite all the things i would have done differently...I had an amazing time with hands down, the best boyfriend in the world.

How many guys could or would pull off this and look as dashing????

Other news this weekend.

Boyfriend Jon had one of his two turtles pass away this weekend. Filbert, the Eastern? Painted Turtle, who had been a part of Boyfriend Jon's life for about sixteen years, died sometime between Friday and Saturday. We had a small ceremony to bury him out in my swamp. Considering that the turtles typically live a maximum of two years due to "owner incompetence" but can live up to 25 years, Filbert lived a fairly long and happy life.

The other turtle, Predator, we are convinced will survive a nuclear fallout.

Spring Clean is complete

I had been "moved" into my apartment for almost two months. There were still boxes everywhere, and moving from room to room was an obstacle course. I have been assuring boyfriend Jon that i don't normally live with this much mess. That when i lived alone before for those few short months, my house was kept at a reasonable state of clean.
He really had not had a lot of reason to believe me. Let's just leave it at that.
I decided about three weeks ago that i needed a serious incentive to finish unpacking and getting my apartment to the state i had envisioned. My only problem was that some of the stuff had no where to go. But that was efficiently taken care of by the creation of my DVD stand and my TV stand. Both are now in place and filled with all the random stuff that had been taking over my living room.
I also got my dad's help framing and my mother's help in hanging the wall art which has been sitting in my dresser drawers for a little over a year. Mirriors, calendars, wall sconces, floating shelves, and white boards all went up. The remaining six boxes were emptied and taken out to the recycle bins. Stuff magically found places, and slowly but surely, i was all but done.
I sat down and literally a minute later, my incentive to complete these tasks...arrived. I had invited my family over for a bbq. A couple of my oldest friends were able to join us too. Next thing i knew my home was filled It's looking like my capacity is about 8 before the place becomes too cramped.
I was exhausted, sore, and bordering on cranky but very happy to see people i care about enjoying themselves in my new home. There was good food, good company and my dad even had an audience to regale with stories.
And even though i was happy to share my now clean home with my family and friends...i was also relieved when they helped me clean up, take some of the extra food and leave. I was exhausted and promptly laid down. Had i known how tired i was going to be, i might have canceled. But I'm glad now that i didn't. I simply MUST do this again soon.

And just when i thought i could lay down and recover with some deep sleep...my smoke detector goes berzerk at 1:10am. It took me 45 minutes to figure out that No, my apartment was not on fire, No....there was no carbon monoxide, No, it didn't need fresh batteries....but that we had a power outage and the beeping was just it resetting itself. Turns out...the is only one way to tell that i have had a power outage. My microwave clock.

Productivity

There must be something about the month of May. When the sun starts peeking through, temperatures rise up just slightly, a change starts to come over the northwest. More flowers pop through, more pollen covering my pretty black car every day, making it futile to take it for a wash. And yet, despite the sun, it still rains all the time, which keeps Seattlites mostly indoors.

This weekend was no exception. Sunshine came in brief bursts, and clouds loomed over us constantly threatening to dump a torrent of rain. I found myself in my dad's shop working on a project which I had originally planned to have completed a month ago.

The delay was mostly due to the fact that I am not comfortable working in the shop alone while cutting large pieces of wood. So I had to wait until my dad and mine's schedules lined up so we could work at the same time. My friday afternoon was spent cutting the basic pieces of wood out and dry fitting the daddos. Saturday was spent putting the pieces of my new DVD stand together and debating the finer points of carpentry with my dad. Sunday was putting the finishing touches on. Iron on veneer edging, filling the holes and sanding before i put the very beautiful stain on.

I choose a red mahogany stain and I'm giving it lots of time to soak in for a darker, richer hue. And starting next weekend I'll be making a TV stand to match.

I was very lucky to receive a carpentry education very young. My dad, a do-it-yourself-er for life, hardly ever called in a professional. We ripped out plumbing, electrical, walls, floors, ceilings. As a matter of fact, in my parents home of 22 years, i don't think there is a single room where i haven't at some point seen the guts of the house. He also built a good amount of our furniture, and that was something that I was avid to learn how to do.

Most of my carpentry skills have been developed because I know what quality furniture is like and when i walk through the halls of Walmart, Ikea, and other "cheap furniture" places, i become frustrated or disgusted. I hate particle board with a vengeance and outright refuse to buy anything made of the stuff. Anything that is truly quality furniture, is absurdly out of my price range.

Thus I am extremely proud of my creation. Made from some "not-so-scrap" scrap material my dad graciously let me use, it is beautiful, functional, sturdy, and well made. I can't wait for it to grace my home.

In other news:
I found where the gremlins have been hiding my stuff. ALL of it was still located back at my parents garage including that elusive curtain rod. I'm just not sure how 3 people and myself, could be so sure that it had made it into my apartment, when it never left the garage. Hmmmm.... sneaky devils.

Updates

A little while back, i posted about getting a ticket for my tabs, and the resulting mitigation hearing.

Well, i was probably about the dozenth person the judge called forward. The people before me had delt with issues like failure to yield, speeding and a single other tabs problem. And immediatly following a gentleman who was there to Contest, not Mitigate his ticket which nearly caused a shouting match, he called my name. He was in a fairly incredulous mood. I believed this would only prove bad for me. The previous person with a ticket for their tab only got 50$ knocked off their sentence. And they had taken care of it within three days.

Turns out the Judge liked that i took care of the issue the very same day. My 216$ fine, was dropped to just 50$. :)

Other news. I have taken back up one of my hobbies; Knitting. Being mostly self taught, i had gone as far as i could go mostly in the form of scarves. So i enlisted the help of Nano Annie and her mom. The project?.....a beanie hat. But not just a simple basic hat. I wanted something with a little more dimension to it. To learn some more stitches and to for the first time, follow a pattern.
So far.... this is nuts. I still can't see a pattern so far, but i'm hoping another set of 10 rows, and i'll have something mostly resembling the pattern and eventually...a hat.

I'll keep you posted for the outcome.

Apartment Adventures

I'm happy to announce that my credit and background checked out just fine and I'm signing onto the lease tonight unless I hear otherwise and then it's just a matter of rescheduling rather than changing minds.

It's not that I was worried per se. But over the last months, when i was 99% sure everything was going to be fine, it was that 1% which screwed me over repeatedly. So I've been walking around like I'm waiting for the ax to fall all weekend. Even my sister found out just how on edge I've been. Saturday night held only 2.5 hours of sleep for me. On the other hand I finished a book cover to cover.

I've developed a highly strategic plan of attack on my apartment. Now all i require is the energy after work each day to actually execute this plan.
...And BOXES!

Update

Today is the 18th. Last Friday i foolishly assumed that i would have my endorsement today. Instead i was met with a bevvy of exercises that left me exhausted both mentally and physically.
And that was just the riding.
While i passed my written exam with 100%, I unfortunately failed the driving range by a single point.
So rather than sitting and wallowing in misery over the blow to my ego; here's the facts

• I still have 30 days to pass
• I have Mark, a riding veteran and patient instructor.
• I have use of my sister's bike and a large parking lot across the street from her apartment
• I can get the measurements off the course and re-create them with chalk Then totally p0wn them!

And most importantly. I have my determination. This is truly a part of my being. Being on the bike fits for lack of a better explanation. It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when i get my endorsement.

Doing the weaving and throttle and clutch all came naturally. It was the tight turns that caught me.

On the plus side i guess; when i get out on the real road. I'll be a better driver thanks to extra practice.

Woohoo for learning HTML

My Widget! This shows you my overall progress on NaNo for 2008.



This shows you how I'm doing at meeting the daily quota (ignore all that red stuff and yeah.....)



And this show's you my percentage to complete:



I wish i could show you my progress report except that it said i was projected to finish in about 13 days (there's only 12 left btw) and um....the dog ate it.

Filled with massive quick updates and thus is long

I know...lame, no posts in a week? how have you ever survived ~snirk~

Random updates:
Met a cute technician that came to fix our machines at work. Get this, his birthday is a week and a half after mine. Might possibly be hanging out with him at some point...possibly not. I'm not discounting it yet though we seem incapable of having compatable schedules. And he seems more like the kind that likes thinner, prettier, more helpless kind of women. We'll see though. There's apparently been a hint of flirting on both sides acording to Mark, aka, Mr. Nosey matchmaker. :P

I'm 22. My birthday was wednesday...dinner with the family was less than perfect but my friends totally made up for it the following saturday even thought we didn't end up going bowling. Colin even came all the way in from Ebyss which was very much appreciated even though he did have an alterior motive of retrieving his pillow. Also, Kenny, Josh, Grace, Katie and her boyfriend Jeremy, whom i had not met previously (he was quite interesting, suprisingly articulate and had quite the develish side. A good person to know all in all, i thought) were able to come and add to the fun.

At the bowling alley, (we went, just didn't actually bowl) I bought one of those toys that comes out in a ball and you have not idea what you got until you somehow manage to smash open those infuriatingly indestructable little plastic balls. I was hoping for one of the light up flashy ones, and instead i get this necklace with "Happy birthday" on it....talk about wierd!!!!

We went to Gameworks in Seattle instead. had lots of fun messing with Grace who got a little tipsy. Ok, rather tipsy. Played a lot of games, intimidated an annoying jerk that blocked the line by trading off between two people. So i went and stood within inches of his back. Just enough to where i wasn't touching him, but close enough to make anyone uncomfortable. He left after that.

Paid my first round of car insurance, rent, and car payment but need to get the car payment turned around so it is also on the 25th like everything else.

Trying despreatly to figure out how to make this version of the oragami eagle because it's really cool. And so far i'm failing at step 12 out of 60...correction, make that step 15 now.

Have a hair appointment (yeah, it still feels wierd to be saying that after seeing Talona for 3 years now) on Friday. I love my legnth but it definetly needs to be styled better so it doesn't go *poof* on on the bottom. and then i'm happy with being a brunette right now for the simple sake of not having to keep it up as often, but i miss my auburn so i'm going to have her do lighter brown and auburn highlights.

I've gotten a little lazy on Yoga lately, in favor of knitting. The fall season is upon us and i am no longer content with my collection of scarves because their all either red or blue. Thus i'm doing this funky material that's almost like two threads running lenth wise, and in the middle is silk, nothing, silk, nothing. in a black and champaigne color. I have over two feet of it already and it looks really nice. Then i'm going to trim it in a nice soft fuzzy champaign color. I'm also planning on doing this goregous snow white color in a loose stitch with that same champaigne as trim and as pinstriped lines running through it. More neutral of colors so hopefully they'll go with almost anything

I'm watching Kelsey again. So far, she's sick so i'm not so worried about her causing trouble. Still keeping an eye on her though. We're going to go see Eagle Eye tonight. Just to get out of the house and do something. She's really a smart and fun young woman. Just tired of being reined in, a mentality i can understand all too well. Wild-natured women should not have reins much less anyone holding them. I still look at her and think to myself: dear god, that was me five years ago. I think for all of everyone's worrying and all her rebellion, there's a very good chance that when she gets to make descisions for herself, they'll be fairly smart ones and they'll be good ones for her. Right now, a lot of it's the bristling and fluffing the feathers to get people to leave her alone with a mixture of crying out for attention and someone to actually be involved but not controlling. It should be VERY interesting when her sister and mother arrive home on Wednesday. I think she'll go slightly crazy because she'll suddenly have two mother's again trying to control her. Not a position i ever want to be in. Things are going to get rather teritorial rather quickly.

Still trying to work with some ideas for NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month = writing 50k words in 30 days. It's rather interesting and i think i'll probably enjoy it.) Still struggling with making it a cohesive plot with an actual objective.

That's about it. Later.