Tribute

Today the world is missing one more great person. Dr. Jim Hagen passed away last night. My mom just called me at work to report the news. He'd been struggling with cancer for sometime and last night lost his battle.

So many of my fondest memories from growing up involve the Hagen family. As long as I can remember knowing people, I remember knowing them. Jim was a kind and happy soul. A great Chiropractor, and a great friend. He will be greatly missed. My heart goes out to his family.

Below is a picture of Dr. Logan, my dad (Dr. Jones) and Dr. Hagen. Three chiropractors enjoying Jim's 60th b'day party.



And her is a funny video I accidentally took with my camera at the party.
Jim Hagen


I'm sure glad I took my camera that day.

Twas The Night Before Halloween..

Chris and I went to our local vegetable stand a couple of weeks ago and picked out our pumpkins for Halloween. We were going to take them to the carving party that was canceled. He got a great big elongated one that looks like a horse head, and I got a cute little round one.

Sadly a strange pumpkin eating disease has attacked mine and is eating it from the inside out. There is a small hole on one side and a ring of mold that gets bigger everyday. It has been like this for about 2 weeks now and I just can't bring myself to dispose of it. I was going to put it in the yard waste barrel yesterday, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I even went back to the vegetable stand last weekend to pick out a new one and I just stood there - staring at all the pumpkins - but not a single one of them stood out to me like my moldy one back home.

So this year, rather than carve my pumpkin with a scary face I'll just leave it moldy rotten on the front porch. That seems scary enough!

Sunday Morning Blog

Another weekend is passing by rapidly. Friday night we celebrated Kara's b'day with her and Matty by overeating (thanks to Chris's awesome culinary skills) and watching (or sleeping through in my case) a movie.

Yesterday we went to the Seattle Ski Fever show at the Qwest Field Exhibition Center. It got me very excited for the upcoming ski season. I think the funniest part of the show was the booth for windows. Windows, at the ski show? Because that's what I went there looking for. Look honey, we can get new skis and new windows! Lucky us! - crazy

After the show we came home and attacked the yard. Chris cleaned gutters, I mowed, raked and swept all the darn leaves. We have these 2 huge trees in our front yard that drop leaves for about 2 months straight. We'll have to attack them again before winter actually hits but at least we got the majority of them up. We also trimmed the hedge and trimmed the lawn. Oh the joys of home ownership. When we were done we were so exhausted we ended up on the couch for the rest of the evening.

We were supposed to go to two parties last night. A pumpkin carving party and a housewarming costume party but we didn't make it to either. The pumpkin carving was cancelled due to an illness and we were way too tired to get dressed up and go to Des Moines for the costume party. I was actually really looking forward to both parties. Oh well.

Tonight is the annual Argosy Halloween Party on the MV Kirkland. I guess I should start figuring out what I'm going to dress up as!

Somebody Stop Me!

I've gone pink! Pink Laptop, Pink Mouse, Pink Blog.....I must be stopped.

The Lotus Has Arrived

Last night, when we arrived home, on our front porch was a giant box. The kitties were so excited they could barely wait for us to bring it in the house. Because Chris had talked about it with them non-stop since Sunday they knew it was their new Refined Feline Luxury Cat Tree. The box weighed a ton, but somehow we managed to maneuver it downstairs without squishing a kitty. They were both very helpful putting it together. Ares ate all the stray pieces of styrofoam (until we noticed and stopped him) and Percy licked all of the plastic sacks. I didn't think to get any pictures of them actually on the tree (I'll try and do that this weekend) but here is a picture of it this morning when they were fast asleep in the bed with Mr. House.



Oh, and here is a picture of Besta that the Lotus matches perfectly!

Halloween = Chili Cook Off?

At work today we had a Halloween party. It consisted of a chili cook off and a beer tasting contest. I totally understand how beer and Halloween go hand in hand, but chili? Granted, the chili was good. There were about eight different kinds. I made some yummy corn bread muffins (chili seemed to heavy to carry to work with me). I also won a glow in the dark black cat Pez dispenser by sticking my hand in a slimy bucket of brains (cold wet noodles) and pulling out a little pink ball. Our CEO won the beer tasting contest. I think it must have been rigged. I didn't even taste the beer and I could tell which was which just by the colors. Now that is a skill. Yep, I have beer skills, and chili eating skills, and prize winning skills.

Happy Halloween Party/Chili Contest/Beer Tasting Day!

Continued Invasion: Things That Are Pink

Today I received the next item in my quest to obtain things that are pink. I ordered a pink wireless mouse for my new pink laptop. It is so cute, and pink! And a portion of the proceeds from it goes to fight heart disease in women. I'm just doing what I can. Oh, and the best part about the pink mouse, the price of it is now over $20 more than what I bought it for. Go me!

I think I'll go home and make something pink for dinner to celebrate. Chris will be thrilled.

Fear of Holes

Now that we have the entertainment center situation under control and the downstairs is starting to look like an actual room Chris has decided that it is time to turn it into a kitty play land.

He has this book called The Cat's House and has been wanting to build a series of ramps and ledges for the kitties to climb all over the room while we're sitting there watching TV. This would involve a series of holes in the nice clean walls that would most likely drive me over the edge.

I watched as he cut strips of twine and hooked them to the wall with duct tape showing where each ledge and ramp would go. As he was doing this I started to hyperventilate. Ramps, everywhere. Carpeted perches all over the place. A rope swing? I almost passed out. So, I had to take matters into my own hands. I agree, the kitties deserve to play, but we must keep in mind that one of them (Big Kitty) is over 20lbs and not climbing ramps anytime soon.

I did some research and I found this article from the New York Times which led me to this Costco item - The Refined Feline Luxury Cat Tree. I placed an order yesterday for the Birch version which will go nicely with our new Ikea Besta TV center. It won't take up too much room, the kitties will have a playground, and there will be no holes in my walls.

Crisis Averted.

Because I Can

I've signed up for the 2008 Seattle Breast Cancer 3Day walk (my new page). Our motto this year is "because I can". I'm really looking forward to getting back out there and doing some training walks. I've been taking some much needed time off from walking but now I think I'm ready to lace up the sneakers again. I'm trying to figure out the code to post my new donation barometer here on my blog. They don't have the canned cut and paste code this year. Grr. Now I've got to come up with some creative ways to fund raise this year. I'm thinking about doing a driveway sale in the spring. I can clean out some clutter from the house and raise money at the same time. I'm also thinking of hosting a boobie'que. I'd get all the food and maybe a keg and then people could donate money to attend. People tend to feel better about donating when they get something for it. And, as we all know, I love to host parties. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Stormy!

Water is dumping from the sky. Wind is blowing said water sideways. People are coming in from lunch sopping wet. Fun times in Seattle.

Our power stayed on all night long. It was on when we got home from Jules Maes (mmm) and never went off. The power gods love us! House was warm and toasty. Good times.

Besta Enon TV is back in stock. Chris should be at Ikea now picking it up! Tonight will be filled with Besta building. w00t!

Arrival

Windstorm '07 is here and the building is creaking'. West Seattle Blogs says that most of West Seattle is without power at the moment. Maybe I'll have an excuse to miss work tomorrow morning. You can't set an alarm that has no power!

Lazy Day Kitties

Strides Were Made

Yesterday I met up with some fellow Warming Hut Hotties to participate in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in Bellevue. It was great to see everyone again and many of us managed to talk ourselves into to participating in the 3day next year. As Melissa put it "Because I can". That pretty much sums it up.

A new found pleasure this weekend was playing Lord of the Rings online with Chris. He's been asking me to play it for sometime but I've always resisted. Now that I have the new laptop I finally gave in. I must say I truly enjoyed it. I was a female elf of the champion class. This basically means that I like to use a sword and knife and kill things - constantly. My favorite skill I learned was the Wild Attack. It is exactly as it sounds, wild. It is amazing to me how fast time flies by when you're playing a game like that. It took about 2 hours to download and get set up and then we played for about 4 hours straight. Chris was a minstrel so as I killed things he healed me with song. Fun times.....

Another weekend activity was shopping for an entertainment center. We've lived in the house for about 1.5 years and had the fancy TV for about that long. It currently sits on this wicker table that came from the boat with this weird shelf thingie next to it to hold all the components, dvds and our game collection. It drives me nuts mainly because it isn't symmetrical and everything is sort of piled all willy nilly on the shelf thingie. We went to 3 furniture stores in Southcenter on Saturday morning and we finally ended up at Ikea. After much debate we agreed up on one that we both liked and would actually fit in the space we had. It was a modular system so we sat at one of the tables and built out exactly what we would want. We then proceeded to the warehouse area to load it in the cart where we found that it was out of stock. *sigh* Now we have to wait 7-10 days for it to be back in stock. Lame.

Family Computing

Enjoying The New Laptop

First Pink Post

First post from the new laptop. I'm lovin it. I'm trying to figure out how to use the built in webcam so I can upload a video of me enjoying it. Stay tuned.

I think Chris was jealous so he went to Comcast today and got a DVR and another HD converter for the bedroom. He's puting that together and I'm blogging. Fun times in the House house.

Mean Kitty Song

Pretty in Pink

The new laptop is here and it is sooooo pretty! Can't wait to get home and plug it in.

Mid October Blues

Downers:

• Weather has turned cold and drizzly
• Dark when I leave for work, Dark when I get home.
• Rising heat bills
• Damp muddy yard
• Crackly skin
• Too much work for one person to handle
  

Uppers:

• Pink laptop arrives tomorrow
• Winter beers
• Christy & Jeremy were married last night!
• Winter beers

How I Get To Work

Ordered!

Pink laptop is on the way! (I'm sitting at home on a conference call so why not shop! Gotta love customers in India/Singapore).

This Sums Up My Day

I Iz Klutz

My arm is numb. From my elbow to my fingertips. Yesterday in a cleaning frenzy I slammed my elbow into the sticking out deadbolt on our basement door. I hit the funny bone square on and my arm went numb. I have movement back and most of the feeling but it is still a bit tingly and if I turn my arm a certain way pain shoots to the finger tips. I hate being clumsy. Really I do.

A Weekend for Me!

This weekend has been awesome. Mainly because I've done absolutely what I wanted to do. Drank Chocolate Martinis with Christy, went to bed early, got up early, I read my magazines, I shopped, I visited Kellibird, I talked on the phone, I cleaned the house, and I'm about 10 minutes away from ordering my pink laptop (well maybe, tough decision). Chris is out of town at the 20th anniversary of Boys Weekend at Anderson Island. I took advantage of his absence by doing all the little things that I've let pile up. Feels awesome, but I'm really glad he'll be coming home in a few hours - the kitties and I miss him like crazy. Percy has been whining for 2 days straight and Ares keeps running around the house looking for him and talking to himself. He sounds like a little kid cussing under his breath. I think I'll go put up more Halloween decorations.

Chris Dodd?

	Chris Dodd Score: 45	Agree Immigration Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Energy Marriage Death Penalty	Disagree Iraq Line-Item Veto
-- Take the Quiz! --

Hillary and Barack were a close 2nd.

I Covet: Part II

OMG (yes I just used the phrase OMG)- I have found it. The perfect laptop for me. Pink. Cosmopolitan Pink. Sony. Vaio. They'll donate money to Brest Cancer research. Free shipping. 12 months no interest. Pink....and Sony. I'm having a hard time not buying it right now. A really hard time. I even called Chris and told him to "talk me out of it". He tried, but not very hard. I think he wants me to get it. Deep down, secretly. Mainly because then I'll shut up about it.

I Covet

I have a very strong desire to order a pink laptop. I've actually been thinking that I'd like a personal laptop for home. So I can blog from anywhere, shop from bed, read bloglines in the backyard, etc. But yesterday I found out that they make pink laptops. And blue, green, brown, yellow, red, etc........but pink! And for some reason, now I must have one.

When I was little I hated pink. Pink was putting me in a category I didn't think I belonged in. My mom always claims that my hatred for pink stemmed from me getting something like 100 pink dresses when I was born. I'm pretty sure I don't remember that, but I guess that could be why.

Either way, I've outgrown that hatred, and for some reason now I must have things in pink. Including a laptop that I really don't "need" but that I now really really "want". Really. Bad.

New Adventure

Today was a first for me. I had an appointment in Bellevue this morning and I decided that I didn't want to drive over there and try to find parking, I'd rather take the bus. So I got up at my normal time, and caught my normal bus downtown, but instead of walking up to work I headed to the bus tunnel (1 block) and caught an Express 550 to Bellevue! Door to door it took me about 1 hour. I've always shied away from Bellevue because I don't like to drive and the bus ride was an unknown, but now it is known. Bellevue here I come! (well not really, but it is fun to say)