Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
All in What's Up
We're at the time of year when the first cherry blossoms have come and gone, and the rhododendrons, dogwoods, magnolias, and lilacs are blooming all around the area. Our rhodie in the back yard and lilacs are very showy now. Some of our annuals are blossoming now, too (red flowering currant, columbine, blue star creeper) and our osmantus are at the tail end.
Kellen and Tynor's school has a showcase every year, and this past Friday was the 2009 PSCS Student Showcase. All the senior projects were on display and several students got together to perform or give demonstrations.
Melody's sister Celeste was in town for several days, so we went over to Spokane for the weekend to visit family over there. Celeste lives in Austin, TX and had originally planned to come over the Christmas holiday. However, the weather was bad enough that she postponed the trip until this month when the weather would be better. We always enjoy having her visit and spending time with her.
Melody was laid off from the University of Washington last May due to budget overruns in UW Technology (for whom I also work). It didn't take her long to start networking with contacts and before long she was talking with The Web Collective, an employee co-op which does web site development. She started working for them as a consultant in July.
Twice a year a bunch of restaurants in the area participate in a promotion called Dine around Seattle, where you can get a fixed-price dinner for $30 and lunch for $15. While it's more than we would usually spend for a meal, the restaurants which are involved are normally much more expensive. We've found it's a great way to try places we normally wouldn't; we try to take advantage for at least one lunch during the promotion. Today we had lunch at Shea's Lounge at the Pike Place Market.
A few months ago I wrote about how we were working on a short plat land sale with our neighbor, and how we hadn't heard anything for quite a while. Days after that post we heard that things were proceeding and had to sign and have notarized the final set of plans to be submitted to the city. Things went back and forth a few times, and we wanted to make sure all the documents were in order. We signed the papers earlier this week and the sale closed the next day.
Seems we normally get one pretty good snowstorm every winter, with perhaps a second one. Some years we've gotten no snow. This year, however, has been truly different, with at least a couple times when we've had several inches on the ground, a couple other times when we've had an inch or so, and a couple others where the ground was at least white. The weather is warm enough now that even if it does snow, it doesn't hang around very long.
Every now and then the planets align and we end up doing lots of stuff over a weekend; this past weekend was one of those. We had dinner with some of my cousins on Friday night, did lots of stuff in the yard on Saturday, hung out with some friends on Sunday, and had dinner with another cousin of mine on Monday.
Spoke with my mom today and she said she went home from the hospital yesterday. She was in for quite a while, but most of the time was so she could have physical therapy several times a day.
Seems like almost everyone around here is getting sick. Both Kellen and Tynor are going through round two, while Melody and I weren't sick for that long and haven't had any recurrence, at least not yet.
My mom went back into the hospital on Wednesday the 21st. From what I can tell she's still having dehydration problems, and this time it caused her to be dizzy and have problems with her equilibrium. She's doing better now, although she sounded a bit tired when I spoke with her earlier this evening.
As part of our multi-year landscaping project, Melody and I cover up a lot of weeds and sod. Our landscape designer recommended starting with a layer of compost, a double layer of cardboard, then a thick layer of wood chips. This has worked really well for us; the old weeds and sod are pretty well suppressed, and all we need to do is pile on more chips every now and then. Sometimes the hard part is making sure we have all the parts necessary to proceed.
I went to Costco tonight and picked up about a dozen things. I found a line which looked suspiciously shorter than the others - I'm always a sucker for those lines, even though it seems that many times they're slower than the other ones. At any rate, the guy before me was almost ready to start loading his stuff onto the belt when something happened that I had never seen before: I got pre-scanned.
Got home tonight at about 7pm and noticed the street light near our house was out. After I picked up the mail it dawned on me that our porch light was also out. Our neighbor to the east had lights so I figured this was one of those rare times it didn't turn on. However, it also didn't turn on when I flicked the switch. Our neighbors across the street, their neighbor, and the neighbor to the west didn't have power either, but all the other houses seemed to.
We're back in Seattle after spending the week in Southern California. It was a pretty whirlwind trip, but things went well. It was nice to thaw out with warm weather.
By the time this gets posted we had planned on being in Spokane with Melody's sister Celeste, but weather has changed plans. It would have been a slow drive over the pass, and we would have needed to turn around the next day and head back to Seattle. Instead, she'll sometime after the 1st, after travel is more sane.
Even though the roads and sidewalks have been slick, Melody and I have been walking around in the snow to go to the store, hang out at a coffee shop, etc. The snow we got during the week only went away a little bit and we got more last night, to the point where there's about 6" on the ground right now, and the snow has started back up.
I went up to the top floor of the UW Tower today to take a look at how the snow we've been getting looked from above. Since there are only a few inches on the ground, it doesn't look completely white, but I still thought it was pretty.
For several years our neighbor (to the west) has been thinking about changing his house, either expanding it by adding a second story or by tearing it down and building a larger house in its place. Then last year he and his wife drove by a house on a golf course in Federal Way and decided that's where they wanted to live.
Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday. Jean (Melody's mom) and her husband Ron came over on Thursday for dinner and we all went over to Keith and Bev's house on Friday.
