Best Date Ever

Jeff and I went out last night, down to 21st St. We had dinner at a sushi place where we ordered a boat of sushi. It was hilarious, our sushi came on a boat! I didn't have my camera with me but I did take pictures with my phone, unfortunately I seem to be blackberry disabled. I can't get mobile blogger to work anymore and I can't get my computer and blackberry to communicate..... alas. I don't know the numeric password to my macbook because my password has letters in it! WTF?

After the sushi on a boat we snuck into the premiere of The Auteur at Cinema 21. We had to sneak in see, because it was sold out. It was really fun, the director and the actors were there and a ton of people who worked on the film. We skipped out on the after party though, didn't really feel like going. The movie is really good, it's really funny, as long as you're not offended by naked people or making fun of porn. It's filmed in Portland and is fun, not just because of all the familiar places but I do enjoy that aspect of it.

New glasses!

A little while back I very tragically stepped on my glasses. I loved those glasses. I bought those frames at Puttin' On the Ritz in Eugene for $8, and got the lenses put in them for $15. That was like 9 or 10 years ago! Then the other day I put them on my night table to take a nap, somehow knocked them off, and when I got up I stepped right on them. Tragedy!



Boo! Broken glasses! Tape totally does not work, I tried it.



So I had to wait until I was on Jeff's insurance, then I went and got some new glasses. I got these at Erstwhile Optical downtown. They have "vintage stock", which have never been worn. They're new old glasses.





I like the fancy little side things.



They were only supposed to take 2 weeks, and into the third week I got a call saying I could come pick them up the next day, but that was tuesday and we were leaving town that evening for Turkey day. So I went in on Saturday, and they weren't ready! I was not pleased, but to assuage my annoyance the guy gave me a free pair of glasses! So I got some more normal-ish frames. They're really comfortable.



and here's a gratuitous cute Rosie picture.

Turkey Day Vacay

Emme is way into matching again..... Aubs came to Ptown for the weekend and the few days before Thanksgiving. We went on a Target shopping spree to get matching clothes for the three of us. Lucky for us, Aubry and I fit into the larger sizes of some childrens clothes! These are our two main matching outfits:





We also did lots of crafts while visiting at my parents.
We made a wreath out of cookie cutters:



I made this cherry pie for our Thanksgiving dinner. It's made with cherries from my grandma's tree that i picked in the spring, pitted and froze.



We also made a gingerbread house. Santa has been abandoned by is reindeer, so sad....



Emme had a tree stuck to her shirt at one point!



Jeff carved the turkey, free range organic happy turkey. Thanks, Mom!



Baxter has grown into a big happy fatty snorty guy.



He and Rosie got along really well. Good cousins!



He's got a beautiful British smile.... the top row of his teeth are staggered like shark teeth! Gotta love that underbite, too.



So snuggly! The vibrations of his snoring are so soothing.....



Bulldog club! "Doggie evolution" or maybe devolution....



Tramp-O-line!



Spence's golden birthday on Thanksgiving.... I made him this hat with a little elephant on it.

Keep 'em coming

I'm having a bit of an off day. Been working really hard, but nothing's quite gelling. I try to stay positive about all this stuff. But I have this transaction that's so close and now seems to be falling apart. So sad. I found a new gray, well, really it's white, hair today. I'm blaming this specific situation. So now I"m back at home after driving around, hanging out at the office, talking to way too many people trying to keep this thing together. I have more work to do. I should get out and go door knock my neighbors or something too. It's hard to get out and do that in the first place, but it's extra hard to do in this rainy windy weather. I really want to snuggle up with Rosie and take a nap. Or just hang out and knit. I got some jumbo size 19 circular needles, so I can bust out on some plastic bag bags. Suh-weet.

Even before Halloween

We went to the pumpkin patch.







Is my dog possessed?

A little bit late

Halloween pictures!

We went nuts with the yard decorations. I put up about 12 tiki torches.



We dressed up as "bikers" or "greasers" or something..... What's important is that we matched with Rosie.






Fear the army of children!

Amazed and Relieved

Yaaaaaaayyyyy!
It's like a whole new America.
I got rid of all my cheesy American flag stuff when it became so associated with Bush and the war and all that. Now I want it back! I have renewed hope for our country.

I'm edumacated

I just attended a really interesting City Council Candidates Debate between Amanda Fritz and Charles Lewis. After that was an explanation of the Ballot Measures by the League of Women's Voters. It was organized by the Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association which I have recently gotten involved with. It was a really informative and cool meeting, and I was a little surprised at how few people were there. Well, maybe not surprised. But it was kinda sad.
Anyway, I like both Charles Lewis and Amanda Fritz, but I'm voting for Amanda Fritz. She's a badass, has tons of experience, and I think she'll do a bang up job of it. Also, voting no on 61 and yes on 57. These measures somehow contradict each other, and reportedly the one that gets the most votes will win..... 61 bad, 57 good. or maybe not good, but the lesser of two evils?
ooh ooh and NO on 64!

In other news, I am really going to try to post more. I have pictures from pumpkin patching to post soon.
I still don't know what i'm going to be for Halloween! and it's getting down to the wire!
I'm considering Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Morticia Addams.
I've been busting my butt with working lately. Going to start door knocking my 'hood and meeting my neighbors!
I've re-decided that I want to make this career work, and to do that, I have to make it WORK. Like, treat it like a full time job and be WORKING. That may often mean just getting out there and meeting people. Prospecting is the hardest WORK part of this business. The easiest thing to not do, and probably one of the more important things TO do.
So wish me luck!

Real life/Cyber friends

So.... when someone deletes you from their "friends" list on their blog, are you no longer friends? Should you be insulted? Should you assume that the "friendship" is over? Should you give up on inquiries and any more attempts at hanging or reaching out? Seems kinda harsh to me....... Are all attempts at maintaining some kind of relations officially over when you're deleted off the "friends" links list?

Back on the Blogger again!

Yeah, I know I've been MIA.  I was kinda busy.  Getting married and stuff.  I don't know what to say because I just can't sum it up, except it was a fabulous weekend.  and I'm really happy! 

I posted some pictures, though I don't have the OFFICIAL ones yet, except this one:



Photo courtesy the lovely and talented fine human being and a great friend Rick Gersbach

Meal Worms are a Hot Commodity

Today I had a traumatic worm bin experience.  I went out to feed the worms, and in my bin was a huge mass of wiggling meal worms.  HUGE meal worms.  Totally nasty!  The big wiggly mass was surrounded by a huge ringed mass of the red worms.  I think the red worms are eating the meal worms!  I was so so so grossed out.  I can handle the red wigglers, but the fatty meal worms are too gross.  I couldn't handle getting in there and trying to take them out myself, so I thought I'd post them on craigslist.  I wrote up my post, then called my neighbor to see if he would want them for his chickens.  He did, he came over and of course the mass that would have been so easy to scoop out had scattered.  Perhaps been eaten?  There were still a bunch down below that had wiggled under the surface.  But not nearly the huge wiggly mass that it was.  After my neighbor took the worms I opened the confirmation email from craigslist and I thought I hit delete to delete the post.  Then I deleted the email.  But evidently, my post didn't delete.  I've been getting tons of calls and emails for meal worms!  One lady even called me and told me that there is a nation wide shortage of meal worms right now, so none of the pet stores have them.  She says "If you get more, you could try to sell them to the pet stores.  They could be worth a lot of money."

Pictures from recent adventures

Evilcat's wedding

And following dance partay!

Vacay at Mercer Lake

Seafood

Rosie learned to use a diving board!

Cowfish at Newport Aquarium

A bear!

Whoops...

Hello internet!  Oh man, it's been over a month since a post!  How pathetic a blogger am I!  Well, for one thing, I have hardly even been in one place long enough to sit down long enough to type up a post.  There have been 4 consecutive weekend trips to the Eugene area and around and back, along with weddings and coast trips.  There has been much home organizing and furniture arranging, as well as working and wedding planning and birthday having.

So now I am 28.  and in less than 6 weeks I'll be hitched.  

The planning is coming along quite splendidly, though I still have moments of pure stress induced panic.  There are still so man little things.....  (If anyone wants to make me mix CD's of dance music, it would be greatly appreciated)

As far as random updates go, the bees are buzz buzz buzzing around, the worm population has grown and is happily munching my food scraps, the garden is going totally nuts even after sporadic watering habits.  

I'll try to post some pics soon, I've been taking so many and had no time to post any!

First Beekeeper Bee-sting

It was bound to happen sooner or later, right?  I got into the hive the other day to feed the bees and add the second super.  Some poor bee got under my veil somehow and in my collar and left half it's ass in my neck.

 

Here it is on the bathroom sink after Jeff pulled it out for me. 

My neck and baking soda. 

So it looks like I'm not allergic, that's a plus.  I can' remember the last time I got a beesting, but I think i was in my early teens.  Possible still tweens.  

It didn't hurt that bad though, and it only hurt for a minute.  then it got a litlle itchy a day or two later.

Crow baby

I was doing the dishes the other evening when there was a huge commotion of crows in the backyard.  They seemed increasingly agitated so I went to investigate.  Rosie was at the side of the yard, obviously intrigued by something and being dive bombed by crows.  Turns out there was a little fledgeling on the ground she was after.  We got her inside and I asked Jeff to get a box from the basement.  I got on my garden gloves, sorta herded the crow into the corner, and picked it up.  While picking it up I thought it was certainly injured, it was covered in Rosie slobber and I thought it's wing was messed up.  I could have sworn I saw a bone.  So I put the baby in a box, and called the Humane Society, who gave me the phone number for the Audobon Society, who weren't open but wisely have very detailed messages as to what to do with an injured bird and lots of good information on fledgeling birds.  So this baby bird spent the night in a box in our basement under a laundry crate and weighted down with a paint can.  I provided a towel, water in a jar lid, some raw sunflower seeds, a bite of cantaloupe and a heat pad under part of the box as recommended by the Audobon Society answering machine.  

It's amazing, baby birds have blue eyes!  just like other baby animals!

Did you know that crows are very familial?  The young live with their parents for around 2 years and help raise the next brood.  

The next morning I took the baby to the Audobon society, where I waited around for the vet to examine it.  They took it out, gave it a flight test, determined that it was uninjured and had probably been on the ground learning to fly for a few days.  Fledgeling birds can spend 2-5 days on eh ground learning to fly and hunt for food.  So what often looks like an "abandoned" baby bird is not so.  

They said what I thought was a bone was a feather shaft or something and that yes, they look scared to death and broken after an experience like being attacked by a dog.  Baby crow's parents were looking for him that morning, flying around our yard and cawing.  It was heartbreaking.  So I was very happy to hear that I should take it back home and release it under the tree where it's nest is.  Which is in our neighbors yard, not ours!  

I opened the lid and it sat there, then I went to give it some help out of the box and away it flew!  All the way into the park across the street!

This would have been titled "Rosie strikes again"  But it turned out she didn't really strike.  She scared the baby, but didn't actually hurt it.