I passed!

I passed my real estate license test! yay! 91% on the national, 88% on state. 75% is passing. man, i was nervous. i hate tests.

2,515.5 miles and then some

eugene -> bakersfield -> las vegas -> agua caliente -> san diego -> redding -> eugene
and that doesn't include my drive down from portland, and then back up again via lebanon for my cousins wedding this evening.
I am SO glad to be home. I am sitting in my comfy bed cuddling with my sweet Rosie pup. I need to get to studying, I have my license test tomorrow. I am a little nervous....... but today was really fun, I went to the airstream dealership with my dad. I wanted to see the new basecamp trailer by airstream. and my dad wanted to check out the airstream touring coach. the basecamp is pretty neat. bare bones for a travel trailer, but it is COOL. it's like luxury roughing it. you can even get it with high suspension and off road tires! but if it came down to it I think I would probably go for a Tab teardrop trailer before I'd go for a basecamp, because they're more utilitarian and less expensive. the basecamp is like a toy hauler tent trailer. I don't have THAT much gear that needs hauling. and if i had my choice of choices of trailers I would get the 22ft International CCD. *sigh*
anyway, I need to stop procrastinating and start actually studying.
I will post more about our epic road trip later and I will post more pics....some that are better than cell phone pics. some of those show up ok, and then others look like total crap. but I still think it's really fun to post with my phone. technology never ceases to amaze me.

Treasure island

I'm at the vegas bowl. I have no idea whats going on. I've never been to a football game before. The trafic was insane getting here. My dad almost ran over a parking attemdant, then parked illegaly in a vip parking section. I just hope our car is still there later.

Lion habitat in mgm grand

We're staying in the mgm grand. I was very depressed last night because Tom Jones played here and i couldn't go. It was just too expensive!

We just drove through redding. Now we're going to play apples to apples.

Mt. Shasta!

5.45 am...we're off! Max wanted to come with.

Stuck in traffic.... just outside of eugene. I'm hungry and i really have to pee!

totally depressed

AL and I watched the last episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer this morning. we finally finished it. I am glad to now know how it ends, but it was kind of sad and I am sad that it's over. I guess now it's time to move on to a different show, like Angel, or Firefly.

kr club meeting

We had a successful KR fan club meeting this evening. we finally watched "The Thing", which I have had from netflix for like 4 weeks. it's a classic. i forgot just how good it was and how creepy it is, it's been awhile since I've seen it.

Frisbee in the mud!

work and weather....always valid topics

sweet, my "test" was successful........I changed my phone # and hence had to change my mobile blogging number. I miss my old phone number, it was truly perfect. but the new one is good too. it has its advantages, like Crazy Guy can't call me anymore which means I can answer my phone even when it's an unknown number! yay! it's also better to have a local number for "da bidness" and i guess this means I really live in portland now. even changed my address on my drivers license.
so how bout that weather, eh? the wind is blowing like CRAZY out there. I had to lock the door at work today because it blows open. It didn't make much difference for business, I let people in if they came to my door or they went in the yarn store door. Not a lot of people out and about in the 60 mph hour winds and rain. My last customer (of about 3 for the day) was at 6. I closed at 9. I was very bored.

$ for National Aids fund

Today, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the pharmaceutical monolith that charges nearly $1,000 for a 30 day supply of one of its HIV/AIDS medications, is donating $1 to the National AIDS Fund for each person who simply visits their website and "virtually lights a candle." The tally is over 1428212 now.

Please, please take a minute to "light a candle":

lighttounite.org

still knitting.....

I've been knitting. A lot.
this is the scarf i made for Spencer for his birthday. It's double knit, so it's the opposite on each side. I made up the pattern, it came out really well! the double knitting is pretty tricky. (check out the crazy amazing lady who makes two socks at once!)


Aubry and two of her friends came to visit over the weekend. I taught them both how to knit, and Aubry finished her first scarf! here it is nearing the end.



I have also been making lots of nautiloids.

coming soon: vacation

I finished my real estate course work! yay! now I apply to take the Big Test. the actual license test.
I also confirmed with my boss that I would be leaving soon for vacation and then greener employment pastures. though i did offer to work one or two days a week, or as fill-in, because it's hard to give up the yarn discounts. and such an easy easy job.
Plans and reservations are being made for the National Larson Family Christmas Vacation. I suspect it will be a lot like a combo of national lampoon's family vacation movies. road trip, vegas, camping, except my dad looksl more like Tom Selleck than Chevy Chase. So far we plan on staying 2 nights in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand, and at some point we are attending the UO vs. BYU football game. I've never been to a football game. After vegas we are driving towards San Diego, staying 2 nights in a campground, possibly Agua Caliente, which has nice looking hot springs and is in between vegas and San Diego. after camping we are staying in San Diego and going to Sea World. We are doing all of this in an astro van that my dad has purchased from a friend and had fixed, i beleive we are also towing a small trailer full of our stuff. "we" includes both my parents, myself, Aubry and Braden, and Vato (the russian guy who lives with my parents). we are leaving early the 19th, right after Braden gets his braces put on. after christmas we are rushing back home to get back in time for my cousins wedding in lebanon on the 28th. I'm already exhausted just thinking about it! but i'm also excited. it will be madness and mayhem.

whirlwind weekend

andieland came up for a visit over the weekend. we had loads of fun drinking wine, eating good food, knitting and being lazy. it was just what weekends should be.
after andie went home on sunday AL and I got productive, rearranging the living room and the kitchen. it was a big project. i think we spent about 5 hours in a frenzy of moving, cleaning, packing and unpacking. (there are hilarious pics on her site of her chewing on Rosie's face. seriously, check 'em out.)
now it's back to work. I finished all my online real estate courses, and now have to go take some chapter tests out at the school place. then I apply to take the license test. whoo buddy. and i have to quit my boring but easy and sometimes fun but also aggravating yarn store coffee job. which makes me sad, but oh well.

pirates!

i'm up too late, dinking around looking through photos on my computer when i stumble upon this glorious photo that i did not know existed.....



are we tough, or what?

Demon dog

full speed ahead

I am PLOWING through my onine realty courses at lightning speeds! but right now my brain is about to implode. I feel like I've been doing nothing but online test for over 24 hours. though there was sleep in there somewhere, and i went to work, but worked on my quizzes at work. and now sleep will happen again and the quizzes will resume in the morning. i'm so close to done......gotta get it done!
it's been quite cold here. i rode my bike to work today and layered and layered before I left the house. tank top, tshirt, longsleeve tshirt, fleece zip up hoody, down jacket, socks, thermals, legwarmers, jeans, scarf, stretch mittens under bike gloves, fleece lined knit hat under helmet.

from Oaks Park to Rose Garden

Saturday night we got together a great big group of single girls and ventured to Oaks Park in Sellwood for a night of rollerskating. It was superfantastic. I skated the best I've ever skated.....only fell down 3 times! Rollerderby, here I come! i missed tryouts this year, so I've got ayear to train. that skate rink was a pretty fascinating place. lots of highschool kids looking like that's where they hang on the weekends. and there were some super fancy dance skaters. crazy stuff! I attempted to skate backwards with AL's sis during the beginners backward skate. I faceplanted right away. But then the ref person tried to help us, and we made it a little ways, very very slowly. We smuggled in whiskey and 7up in Nalgene bottles. I don't know if they didn't notice that we were drinking it out in the open, or if they really didn't care.

Last night I went to a Blazers game. my dad got free tickets through work, and he came up with vato (who I called "the guy from Russia who lives with my parents", he thought that was pretty funny, he's not from russia but the Republic of Georgia, and he does live with my parents). My dad had extra game tickets, so Paula Deer and I went with. there was also a big fancy free buffet dinner. yum. the game was pretty fun too. we had good seats, $71 seats! It was crazy. I can't believe how much tickets are for things like that. we had $284 worth of seats. The Blazers got creamed by the Phoenix Suns. They were pretty awesome, that Steve Nash guy doesn't mess around, for a short white guy he's pretty damn good. he's short at 6'3". My dad kept saying the difference between their team and our team was that their team made the baskets. Our team missed most of the time. even the free throws. the Blazers dancers kind of suck, but they have these crazy gymnast cheerleaders that get thrown around and they were pretty cool.

tv is trubs

so, despite my efforts to ignore and/or stop it, we have cable tv. it was some part of the internet deal we got, where to not have it was actually more expensive. I have ignored this information. but AL finally hooked the cable to the tv. I got home from work today and she was upstairs watching re-runs of the first season of Top Model. I got sucked in. I sat and watched a little bit, despite my abhorence for Janet Dickinson and my dwindling hatred of Tyra Banks. I just wanted to watch Adrienne win. Later I went back upstairs to get something and to turn the tv off, but I got sucked into one of VH1's fabulous life shows......Really Rich Real Estate! holy crap I have a new favorite show. it was freakin' crazy. and it's on again Monday. now I gotta catch an episode of flip this house. my grandma has been watching that one. Here I was not watching any tv, only tv shows on dvd. I wasn't even watching Lost or Grey's Anatomy, just sometimes catching up online so I could avoid the commercials. Crap, I hate tv!

two dinners and too much fun

Pulpshopgirl and I made the voyage down to the Eug on wednesday afternoon/evening. We heard I5 was all backed up because of a wreck, so we took 99. it took us about 2 hours to get to Salem. There we got on the 5, then got off the 5 to try to find a Burger King, ended up on the 22 heading east, missed the exit for the burger king, ended up out near the correctional facility, got lost trying to get off the 22 and back on headed the other way, drove around lost in Salem until we found the 5 again, drove South until we found a burger king in Albany, stopped there to eat. (Burger Kind has delicious veggie burgers, made by morningstar. we tried a jack in the box out of desperation and they had absolutely nothing i could eat. since I don't like fries.) We barely made it to Eugene and to the Sequential biofuel station out over 30th, I was almost out of fuel. all this took us around 4 hours. we have since vowed to never intentionally stop off in Salem again.

after dropping Pulpshopgirl off I went to may parents and hung out for a bit, then went to Andieland's and got crafty. (she's got better pics up too)



R! was there as well, rockin' some awesome hat hair.



thursday morning I assisted in the preparation of the feast. I made some amazing roasted veggies on the barbecue. I ironed a giant tablecloth and napkins, and got out my grandmas wedding china. we got all fancy, it was fun.







my grandma gave my mom some amazing old pillowcases. Aubry and I each took some, these are mine. They were hand emroidered by my great grandma and the lace tatting was done by her sister.



I want to buy new pillows to go in them. because I need new pillows and it's a good excuse.

After dinner I picked up Pulpshopgirl for the return journey. traffic is much better on Thanksgiving day. we made it back in a normal 2 hours. I came home to another giant meal, as AL had a bunch of ladies over and they had been cooking and drinking all day. So i joined in their festivities and ate giant thanksgiving dinner #2. now I'm sitting down to a plate of leftovers for breakfast. even though it's technically lunch time.

blame it on the rain

I can't shake the cranky. I'm sitting here at work, wishing I wasn't. I think I'm getting bitter about my job. Though its so easy it's stupid. but it has its bad parts. I made $.90 in tips the other day, and I took it kind of personally. 90 cents! and I was busy! also the inability to get time off is frustrating. and when I know I will be leaving a job soon it gets harder to go to work. I know I shouldn't complain, but I am anyway. it is also detrimental to my finances to work here. I can't resist the yarn. it's like putting an alcoholic to work in a liquor store. and I'm right next to the 50% off basket all day every day. I have no willpower when it comes to beautiful yarn, especially on sale. and though it is a good deal and I get good discounts, I probably wouldn't be buying it if I wasn't around it all the time. but it sure is fun. I'm acquiring quite the stash.

update

I didn't get the house, I'm VERY disappointed. But I think I got the problems with my background check ironed out, so thats a huge relief. today was much better than yesterday. and tomorrow after work I'm driving down to Eug with Pulpshopgirl for one night and one big meal.

yarghedy blarghedy

here i am! so much going on I don't even know where to start, so I think I'll make a list

1. Aubry was here over the weekend, we did a lot of shopping and a little knitting. we spent a really long time in the REI, mostly in the kids section. the kids stuff is the same as the adult suff, only cheaper. and it fits us. we also hung out with Robot Zombie Monkey and went to Urban Outfitters and Voodoo Donuts

Urban outfitters has silly undies




voodoo dounuts makes delicious banana fritters with chocolate and peanut butter





2. I made an offer on a house


haven't heard back from the realtor guy. it's a fixer. major project, but it's cheap....

3. trying to get my real estate courses done because they want to start training jan 8, and there are problems with my background check because of the MIP I got when I was 20

4. I have to quit my job to get time off for our big family xmas vacay

5. I have to find a Rosie sitter for xmas vacay

now I have to go drop off my bike for a tune-up, get groceries, make photocopies, and then study

how did that happen?

it's been a week since I last posted? whoa! I didn't realize it had been so long.......well, the last week was a busy busy blur. i worked 7 days straight and still only put in 41 hours. anatomist came down for a night over the weekend, good times with crafting and great movies. anatomist fixed my favorite sweater for me!



we had talked about long before, and it turned out better than I even imagined! now you can't even tell there's a gross oil stain above my nipple! and you know, it's kind of hard to take pictures of your own chest. not to mention kind of weird, too. here's another one with a scarf I made in a day.



I stayed up way too late that crafty night and then went to work early. We went to the craft museum for the last day of the embroidery show. I bought some amazing handspun yarn.....I made that scarf out of handspun camel, and I have a bunch of raw black sheep wool i'm not sure what to do with. it still has bits of straw in it and you can feel the lanolin. It's amazing. It's like touching a wooly sheep.



it's beautiful, I just don't know what to make with it. is it even a good idea to wear wool with the lanolin still in it? I think some people are allergic to lanolin. but it also might make it more water resistant. and the straw bits might be itchy, but they're pretty cool.

also cool thing of the week: I was just working at the yarn store and who walked in but the amazingly entertaining Gwen that I used to work with at the UofO! I was so excited. I had been wondering if she was still in Portland, and there she was! now I have another knitting friend! We went hiking on Powell Butte on Sunday, and she's going to come in and knit at work tomorrow. It's very exciting.

now here's a gratuitous cute dog photo

girls and baby boy

Last night after work I went over to Raven's to hang out with some of the girls and the little man Liam.


Demon Dog Chopper tries to steal my soul!


Pulpshopgirl enjoys a delectable mallow burger....center has a crunchy candy center


I made Liam a custom hat with ear flaps. oh he's too dang cute!


Adri shared her hair with Liam

rainy morning productivity

I have been quite productive this morning. I voted and dropped off my ballot. I forgot my ballot in Eugene and my wonderful mother overnighted it to me so i got it this morning, just in time! I also mailed my background check request for my real estate license. They say sometimes it can take 3 months so it's good to get it in ASAP. I also dropped off my application for food assistance, took care of some banking things, and took Rosie to the park to play frisbee. the rain stopped for a minute. the park is nice and squishy, some how rosie got mud all over her face right when we stepped off the path and onto the muddy grass. now I have to make a lunch/dinner and head off to work.
EVERYBODY BETTER VOTE! it's very important.

quick trip to Eugene

I went down to Eugene yesterday morning and returned to Portland this evening. The driving sucked because the rain + freeway + totally insane drivers = SUCK. But it was a fun visit. i went down for two important events: my mom's 50th birthday! whoa-----holy crap she's almost twice my age! and conveniently enough i got to see Braden in Thoroughly Modern Millie at South Eugene High. I am so impressed with my youngest Bro. not only do his lungs collapse like mine, but he sings and dances. I can dance, but I can't sing. Let alone in CHINESE like Braden does in this play! It was amazing. the whole thing was thoroughly impressive, lots of great tap dancing and hilarity for a fabulous high school production!

before going to the play I hung out with my younger but taller sister. i was so excited when she expressed interest in learning to knit.....I couldn't just let an opportunity like that pass by. So we went to the Knit Shop and got Aubs some yarn and needles. I taught Aubry how to knit! and she now has the biggest yarnball ever too!



other highlights of the swift visit: watching Grey's Anatomy with Andie, excessive cheap-o shopping at Ross, delicious lunch at Ta-Ra Rin (affectionately known as Thai-Hop since it inhabits the former I-Hop on Oak St.) ... also hanging out with another brother Spencer at Soriahs, and last but not least:
the HORRENDOUS drive home that sucked for so many reasons: RAIN. lots of it. hydroplaning near death experience amounts. taking more than 3 hours to get from Eugen to Portland because of Footballl games. i was stuck in standing traffic for about an hour. since UO played the Huskies and that game was out around 4:30, but OSU played AZ and that got out after 5. i left Eugene after 5. damn. oh and the rain, that was sucktastic.

but here's a happy thing, an adorable picture of rosie hugging her own back legs.



as far as "other news" goes, I have enrolled in classes and am studying to get my real estate license. I have hooked up with a local agency that I am really excited about working for, and am officially embarking on a career in Real Estate. I am very excited. and scared shitless.

2 nights 3 parties and 1 bar

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!


Elder Smith and Elder Roberts



karate kid dancing with the semi-colon


Phil Collins and the snow bunny



Elder Roberts and Cruella DeVille



Elder Smith and orange somethings


Elder Roberts beating up karate kid


Elder Smith and Phil Collins


Phil Collins


orange somethings

gunfight anniversary

Yesterday was the 125th anniversary of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. You know.... the one in Tombstone AZ with Wyatt and the other Earps, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons. Last summer Josh was living in AZ and I went to visit and we went to Tombstone. It was a grand ol' time, with rotating dioramas narrated by Vincent Price and gunfight re-enactments. So to commemorate the anniversary of the shootout Josh and I rented Tombstone. You know, the one with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. There are a lot of notable actors in that film. Kurt Russell is always fabulous of course, and Val Kilmer as pale sweaty dieing Doc Holliday, well I think that may be the perforamance of his lifetime. Really his finest work. other notables: Billy Zane, Jason Priestley, Terry O'Quinn, Bill Paxton, I could go on and on. But the real stars of that movie are the mustaches.