A dialogue.

BRETT
(picks up a small plush pez dispenser with the head of a pig)
pig-a-let!!!

CAT
(watches with apprehension as Brett pushes back the head of the pez-pig and pulls out a piece of candy)
That is OLD.

BRETT
(shrugs with nonchalance)

CAT
We got that for Chinese New Year!!!

BRETT
(pops pez into his mouth, and begins to chew)

CAT
(with disgust)
I can't believe you ate that.

BRETT
(with a complete LACK of disgust)
I can't believe I'm about to eat another one.

I can't find my favorite Christmas wreath.

It's covered in bright red berries, and it should be hanging on our front door by now, but I can't find the box that we packed it in last winter. Have you seen it? Do you know where I should look? I THOUGHT all of our Christmas boxes made it into the same storage closet in the garage, but apparently not. I'm trying to get started on decorations, but I keep thinking about how much I want to put the wreath up, and it's distracting me.

In my search for the aforementioned wreath, I've riffled through our entire garage, our linen closet, both guest rooms, and I *think* the whole basement. All the boxes that looked wreath-sized or bigger, anyway. It didn't occur to me that while conducting my search I would come across anything I wasn't SUPPOSED to find, but I think I did. I found a large box, roughly the size and shape of an item on my Christmas wish list. It was wrapped, so I don't KNOW what it is, but I think I have a pretty good idea.

I won't say what I think it is, nor will I be opening it before Christmas. I like making myself wait for presents - that way things get stretched out as long as possible, because I have all the excitement of waiting for them, and then finally the excitement of unwrapping them and getting to use/wear/appreciate them.

I'm not upset that I found my present (I might've been upset if it had just been lying around unwrapped), but FYI: if it's hidden in our house, I'll probably find it. Unless you hide it in the crawlspace (not a good idea, it's super creepy in there), or...hmm...maybe in the file cabinet. Or the waaay back of Brett's closet where I can't reach, or under all the old discarded packaging waste in our garage.

And now it's time for dinner, so I'm going to go. Mmm...crunch patties...

Once upon a time...

There was a girl who caught a cold. It lasted about two days, and then it went away. She was fine for about another week after that, and then she got sick again. Worse than before. At least it feels worse.

Here's my theory: I have three bright orange, 24oz water bottles that I usually alternate through every couple of days when I'm at home. Since Brett and I had colds last week, and then he got sick at Halloween, and then I was resting up from watching over him, the dishes got waaay backed up (especially glasses), and I ended up loading most of our sickie glasses/bottles into the dishwasher on Monday night of this week.

Yesterday I was feeling fine; GREAT even. Then I pulled one of my orange water bottles out of what I THOUGHT was a clean dishwasher, and drank from it all day. By the afternoon, I had a runny nose and a sore throat. Then Brett got home from work, saw the open dishwasher, and pointed out that I'd forgotten to run it, and the dishes were dirty. Boo. I'd been drinking from a dirty water bottle all day.

My stomach felt fine so we both figured nothing would come of it, but my sore throat and runny nose have now turned into a full-blown cold, much like the one I had last week, only a little more severe. Now I'm wondering if the water bottle I drank from yesterday was maybe a SICKIE water bottle, and if maybe the left-over water that I dumped out on Monday night had been housing a lingering colony of cold cooties.

Eh? What do you think? Could my germs have lasted a week in an open water bottle, with only water and probably saliva to survive on? AND could those same germs have reinfected me after I'd already had that virus? AND could my symptoms have started to show up less than twelve hours from being exposed to those germs? Or have I just caught two colds in two weeks?

Either way, feel free to feel sorry for me. Because lord knows I'm feeling sorry for myself. It's a pity party over here. Pity Party!!!

PS I also have cramps. PITY PARTY!!! :(

Blarg.

I was sick earlier this week, but as of yesterday I've been all better. I almost blogged yesterday, but I ended up feeling too busy trying to catch up on things from being sick, and trying to get ready for Halloween, so I didn't. But now I am.

Last night was awesome. Well, 90% awesome. Brett took off early from work, and we drove down to Woodenville to help with his aunt's haunted house. Brett was a zombie doctor, and I was monster hands. As in, I stood behind a wall of spider webbing inside a darkened tent, and pretended to grab at people with giant monster arms. It was rad, but they were heavy, and now I'm sore. It was a great gig though; everyone either laughed or screamed, which is kind of what you're going for when you're in a haunted house. And I didn't have to wear greasy makeup, which was a plus because it always makes me break out.

I've broken my usual rule of posting flickr sets in chronological order, and posted the photos from last night ahead of seven other photo sets that were taken earlier, but whatevs. Also, sadly there are no photos of me OR of my super-cool monster arms, because I was waiting until the end of the night to ask Brett to stop zombieing and take my picture, but he was...out of commission before that point.

Let's just say...one of us ate dinner but didn't drink, and the other one drank but didn't have much dinner. That "other" one ended up realizing his error a bit too late, and the back of his cousin's playhouse will never be the same. It all happened very fast, and before I knew it we were speeding down the freeway: poor, unfortunate Brett with his head buried in a plastic bag, and me sans-monster arm photos, and one mitten short. I loved that mitten. :(

Luckily everyone there was very understanding and not offended (especially since Brett hadn't intentionally gotten super wasted; he just didn't have enough to eat, and didn't realize how much he was drinking), and we left fast because he wanted to get home, not because we got the boot. Once we got home he passed out and slept quite soundly on the bathroom floor, and I spent the night obsessively checking in on him until the wee-hours of the morning.

When he woke up this morning he was sore, but fine for the most part. He found me passed out in a recliner in the living room, and woke me up around 8am when he came in to eat his breakfast on the couch.

Yes, that's right. Not only was he capable of eating a normal breakfast, but a few hours later he WENT TO WORK. And stayed there, behaving as his normal productive self for the rest of the work day. Apparently my husband is made of steel. I could never have pulled off such a feat.

I myself was so sore from monster arming and exhausted from staying up to watch over Brett that I spent today in a zombie-like stupor in front of the tv, watching one season-two episode of Buffy after the next. I usually tell people that season one is the worst, and I think it probably IS the worst in a lot of ways, but as someone who's watched the whole series through multiple times, I think I actually like the content of season one better than the first half of season two. Ah...Buffy.

I feel so guilty about this week. I swear, it's just been one thing after the next, and I haven't gotten anything done. The house is a wreck. The kitchen is so messy that it's barely usable. I didn't post our "weekly planner," because I got sick and never actually made a plan. And then there was Halloween, and then recovering from Halloween. And now it's almost Friday and our house looks like it's been searched for drugs or something. And I'm STILL tired and sore. Tonight we seriously ate StoveTop stuffing and White Castle burgers for dinner. Nuh-asty. But also delicious. So delicious.

Anypoop, I'm going to bed. But before I do:

Halloween 2007

I have a cold.

It hit me hard first thing this morning. Brett noticed it before I did; the first thing he said to me this morning after I greeted him was, "are your sinuses bothering you?" My first response was a puzzled "no," followed immediately by a confused "yes." Then my sinuses gave their own response by GURGLING. Which is never a good sign.

By the time we were heading out to run errands I'd already chapped the end of my nose with kleenex, I had a cough, and was achy and shivery. In retrospect maybe it was rude of me to spend so much time unnecessarily exposing the whole town to my cooties while browsing through the grocery store today, but I love the grocery store, so I had to go. I washed my hands though, and coughed and sneezed into the crook of my elbow.

Now we're back home and Brett is taking good care of me. He's making homemade gumbo for dinner (chicken and andouille thickened with okra, file, AND a roux, just the way I likes it), and we're watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. Later we'll watch new episodes of Food Network shows, and then we'll fall asleep. And hopefully I'll feel better in the morning.

Once I Wanted To Be The Greatest...

Things that have come to my attention today:

1) Cat Power has a few songs I like, but according to iTunes, "The Greatest" is the one I've ended up listening to the most. Making it, in my opinion, "the greatest" song she's written. Or performed, since she seems to sing a lot of stuff she didn't actually write.

2) If you eat about a pound of carrots, your poop will be orange.

3) If Brett comes across a carrot he dislikes, he will apparently be perfectly comfortable spitting the whole chewed up mess into his water glass and setting it in the kitchen for me to discover and then rinse out for him.

4) A 2 lb bag of baby carrots might be a little much for two people to go through on their own.

5) [Entry deleted, as per Brett's request, because apparently he doesn't want anyone to see something he wrote when he was nine. Because he's a jerk.]

Play that banjolele!

I've enjoyed writing things in numbered lists today, so I will continue that trend with this post.

1) Brett bought a ukulele today. He's wanted one for a long time, and occasionally when he would bring it up I would refer to it as a pukulele. He's on the couch tuning it right now, and is very excited to have it. We now have a piano, keyboard, cello, trumpet, bamboo flute, and...ukulele.

I have just over five years of piano lessons under my belt, and play terribly. Sometimes I sit down at the piano and try to bang out something that sounds vaguely musical, but for the most part we don't really get along. I've never really spent time with the other instruments. They're pretty much all just Brett's.

The imbalance of musical skill in our relationship does bother me on occasion (I don't really like being reminded of things I'm not good at), but for the most part I just try to enjoy listening to Brett play whatever instrument he feels like playing, and take pleasure in it that way. Sometimes I like singing, but I'm not very good at that either. As Brett will attest to.

2) I found out this morning that one of my photos is being used on Schmap's neighborhood guide for Portland, so that's pretty cool. They asked my permission awhile ago but weren't sure if they would actually use it. But they did. Yay! I've had other publications use my photos before (most of my first-time visitor hits come through image links), but Schmap travel guides are pretty cool, so this kind of makes me feel like maybe I really AM a decent photographer.

3) I started this post like an hour and a half ago, and now I don't remember what else I was going to write.

4) Avatar is on in a half an hour, and the oven has finished pre-heating for the frozen vegan pizza I plan on eating during tv time (lazy Friday nights are teh awesome), so I'm going to go. But OH! If you don't watch Avatar, you should, because it's supes cool. Courtney, you would especially like it, but I don't know if you have it in JP. US iTunes has it, though. But that costs money.

I should really be asleep right now.

But I felt it would be a little lame if, the same day I declared that I was going to try to post something here every day, I didn't post. I've written some comments on a past post, but until now I hadn't actually created a new post. And now I have. And aside from what I've just said, I'd like to use this post to say three things:

1) Awhile back, one of my younger brothers (who has a comp sci degree from Brown and works for some fancy tech company down in silicon valley) asked me how many hits I had on my blog. When I told him, he was like, "oh." And pretty much stopped talking to me about the internets. WELL SCREW YOU, SAM! AND your fancy degree! Because I just did the math, and right now with 195 posts (this is 196) and 11, 805 unique visitors, I'm averaging about 60.5 visits per post! (And our IP is blocked, so it's not counting Brett OR me.) I may be not be in the league of facebook, youtube, or even maybe even this douche, but I don't think I'm THAT unpopular. Geez.

2) For the last few years, Brett and I have had all of our tv/video equipment monitored by the Nielsen Media Research company. It was fun while it lasted (and the stuff on tv these days is much more my taste than it was before), but alas - I was notified this morning that our survey has ended, and that someone would need to come by to "deinstall" us.

It's kind of bittersweet; I'm sad that it's ending and that what we watch on tv will no longer matter to The Man, but at the same time it'll be nice to be able to move our tvs/dvd players/etc. around again, because right now they all have wires coming out of the back of them that connect them to creepy boxes that are connected to our phone line, and when we want to move them around we have to schedule an appointment. :P

3) I uploaded a new photo set to flickah:

Brett's Parents' House

Take THAT, "The Man!"

From what I learned at hippy school, The Man is always looking for ways to keep us little guys down. One of those ways is by using marketing to fuel our desires and/or play on our insecurities in order to get us to buy things we don't really "need," so that we'll keep giving our money to the people on top, thereby perpetuating our own financial oppression. Or something like that.

From what I've learned from being me, I'm a sucker for good marketing. Or bad marketing...whatevs. If I see something I like, I want it. When I was a kid I used to fantasize about creating a device that would allow me to reach into the tv and literally just pull out anything I saw that I wanted. Especially Strawberry Shortcake dolls. Ahhh...Strawberry Shortcake. Last weekend I watched this and craved orange soda all night. It wasn't an ad for orange soda, and it wasn't even the first time I'd seen it, yet they talked about orange soda, and I wanted it.

Brett and I have been trying to be more thrifty lately, which means no more crazy shopping sprees or big orders from Sephora. Which has actually ended up being more than financially beneficial to us, because I've also realized just how little I can buy, and still feel like my normal self. It's also been great because it's taught me to appreciate all the nice things we already have and, when I DO buy new things, to really see them as special and new. Seriously...when I was working and we had all that disposable income, sometimes we'd go to the mall, come home with three or four shopping bags, and just leave the stuff sitting in the bag on the dining room table for a WEEK without touching it.

Since I've been at home we've had to make some changes, and some of them have been easier than others, but I've been really proud of our thriftiness. I think the thing I'm MOST proud of is that I feel like we've been able to spend less (WAY less) than before, but that we both feel like our quality of life has actually improved, rather than suffered. I'm also proud of the fact that much of our food, cleaning products, and health/beauty items are organic, and that we still manage to avoid doing business with companies whose practices we find unethical.

Admittedly, I don't know much about the business practices at Illuminations, but I've *tried* to learn more, and haven't been able to get any information, which is a good sign. I haven't been able to find them on any boycott lists for fair trade, gay rights, environmental damage, animal testing, etc., which makes me happy. Happy...that...I just screwed them...hmmm...

Whatever. They're still a big company, so they're still "The Man." I think. Either way, THEY offered the sales, and I just took advantage of what they were offering. Our Halloween party is in December again this year (xmasweenukah), so the fact that my order is scheduled to arrive between 10/28-11/01 doesn't bother me in the slightest. Check out my loot!:

ITEM	ORIGINALLY	I PAID	Q. ORDERED
bat stake	24.95	4.79	2
bat stake	24.95	4.80	1
happy cat floating candles	11.95	2.29	1
happy pumpkin floating candles	11.95	2.29	1
owl lantern	21.95	4.21	1
halloween stake replacement votive cup	2.00	0.38	3
glass pumpkin scatter	14.95	2.86	3
haunted candelabra	24.95	4.79	2
haunted taper holder	7.95	1.52	3
set of 2 spider cylinder fill	13.95	2.67	1
subtotal	259.25	49.70
shipping	25.93	8.95
tax	22.80	4.37
total	307.97	63.02

I really have been good at avoiding buying unnecessary things this year, but in years past we've spent much more than this on holiday decorations, so I'm still proud of myself. I waited for the 75% off sale that Illuminations has on their Halloween stuff every year, and then I also used a $15 off of $60 or more coupon. Woo! :)

For more money saving inspiration, check out the links below.

People who've taken it to the extreme:
Six Weeks Without a Wash
Brown Dress Project

MSN Money articles:
Help! I can't afford my life
Save big with the flashback budget
Get off the spending treadmill
The secret to success in the middle class
6 (worthless) excuses for not saving money
Scraping by on $150,000 a year

Damn, yo.

I can't believe I haven't posted since AUGUST. Well, that's not true...I can believe it. But still...that's a long time. It's not that I've been too busy to post (really, it's not that difficult), I just haven't done it.

I always feel like if I'm going to post, it's got to be this huge essay that runs through every little thing I've done since the last time I posted, thereby making up for the fact that I waited so long to post anything at all. The thought of writing what would basically be a "what I did for summer vacation" paper every time I log into this blog kind of turns me off from the task, yet I'M THE ONE WHO DECIDED THAT MY POSTS SHOULD BE THAT LONG.

So forget it. Maybe I'll write long posts every once in awhile, but my new goal is to try for short but frequent, rather than infrequent and ridiculouslylong. As a segue between the two styles, I bring you a brief list of a couple of things that have happened since my last post:

1) I'm dairy free. Maybe someday I'll try goat and/or sheep products, but for now the only "dairy" I'm taking in is of the vegan variety. No animal dairy protein what so ever, because apparently I'm allergic. It makes me SICK. When I wrote in my last post about how sick I felt, that was nothing - it actually got worse and worse over a few weeks' time until FINALLY we figured out it was dairy, I stopped consuming dairy, and I got better. Better than before even, because when I kicked dairy to the curb most of my long-standing digestive issues went with it. Sometimes I'll see a Taco Bell commercial or something and I'll be sad, but mostly I haven't even missed it. Luckily we live in an area with lots of vegan alternatives (we even have good vegan doughnuts!).

2) I've uploaded more photos to flickr. Since my last post, I've uploaded these sets:

On the Road


Sunriver 2007


Kwik-E-Mart


Spokane


Darci & Darren's Wedding


FB Quiz*


Kitty Photos


*"FB Quiz" as some of you may have guessed, was my clever code for "Facebook Quiz." They're photos I put together for a quiz on my facebook profile. I thought about listing the Q&A's on the Flickr images, but I didn't want facebook people to be able to cheat by looking at flickr, so I decided against it. If you aren't on facebook you'll just have to suffer the consequences and not take the quiz. If you ARE on facebook, please don't request to add me if you're not actually my friend. That kind of shit is why I left myspace. Well, that, and the fact that facebook is WAY more awesomed than myspace.

3) I have another blog. ish. thing. It's like, well...a planner. Is exactly what it is. For myself, and for Brett really, but you can look at it too if you want. Sometimes when I tell people I'm a homemaker they get all weird, and either challenge me about it (you wouldn't believe all the people who've asked, "so what do you DO all day?" or made bon bon jokes), or they just sort of stop talking to me, as if I couldn't possibly talk about anything but cookies and rainbows.

My mom and I spent a week together last month while taking an oil painting class at the Sitka Center in Oregon, and the whole time she kept trying to come up with ways for me to justify myself to people, which kind of made me think that before SHE realized what I did she must've thought I just stayed in bed all day.

She kept insisting that I tell people I'm an "Intentional Household Manager" so they'd understand what I REALLY do. I personally like the term "Homemaker" (because I make our house a home. Ghay I know, but I still like it), but she thinks that title "sounds like somebody who'd be on Oprah." I think she meant someone who WATCHES Oprah, which I do not. I don't watch any daytime tv, actually. But she does. She watches Oprah. :O

So...anyhoo, I'm totally ruining my short blog post idea, but what I'm trying to get at is that my Jackson Family Weekly Planner is just that - a planner for US, but I'd rather explain what I "DO all day" by sharing it publicly, than by calling myself an Intentional Household Manager. Which is a little r-tarded. And assholey in a defensive, anal kind of way.

I love you, mom! :D

Blah, Woohoo, FYI, and I don't know what.

First, we'll start with the blah: I'm sick. It started with a mild stomach ache on Sunday that I brushed off as being caused by the heaps o' fat I ate at Crapplebee's Saturday night. On Monday it was worse, accompanied by sore muscles, fatigue, a headache, and a scratchy throat. And by this morning there was no question that I had some sort of strange stomach bug. I even had a fever. :( I was up for a few hours this morning, but went back to bed around 10am and slept until after 3pm. When I finally got up I was so tired that all I could do was curl up in our recliner with water and a blanket. Then I fell asleep again around 7:30pm, and stayed that way until about 8:30pm.

I managed to stay awake through Eureka (thank god), and I managed to eat a little food, and now I think I might be feeling better. I say that I "think" I might be feeling better, because I haven't tried walking around or lying down flat recently. So far both of those things have proved to be a little uncomfortable. I'm so exhausted, and I feel like someone's used my torso as a punching bag all day. I didn't even TRY to do any housework, so naturally the kitchen is a wreck. Well, I haven't seen it yet, but Brett made dinner so I'm sure it's destroyed. I'm glad he made me food though, because I wouldn't have had the strength to do much more than open a pack of crackers or something.

Poor me!!! :(

Next, I'll move onto the woohoo: CHRIS AND SARAH ARE PREGGERS!!! Well, mostly Sarah is, I guess. She's due Feb 6th, so apparently she's been pregs for awhile and managed to keep it a secret. Chris said that he thinks mom knew when we were in Sunriver, but that Sarah kept denying it. :)

They don't want to know the sex in advance, so I'm calling it my niephew for now. I guess this means it's OUR turn to start having kids. We'll have been married for seven years this December, so I suppose it's about damn time.

My FYI is pretty short: I uploaded some new photos on Flickr. Well, the photos aren't exactly new, but I'm still trying to catch up with my backlog a little bit at a time, so they're from May/June, but they're new to my Flickr account, anyway.

The new sets I've created are:

Marindra's House 2007


Trip to Bend 06/2007


Light/Speed


The "I don't know what" part of this post's title was because I was unsure about what I would have left to say once I'd covered the blah, woohoo, and FYI parts. I guess I have nothing to say, really. Despite my gastrointestinal discomfort these past few days (or maybe because of it), I've spent a lot of time pouring through various issues of Cooks, Saveur, and Wine Spectator that we've had lying around. There have been so many tasty things I want to try (especially in this month's Saveur...drool), and it sucks that my stomach is so topsy-turvy right now. The article on Vladivostok alone almost made me want to cry because it made me SO HUNGRY. And I haven't finished it yet, but the avo article is pretty good so far too, and reminded me of Ai's "The Avocado" post. Saveur even mentions using avocado as a more affordable substitute for toro! :)

So...it's late, and I guess that's all I have to write for now. Except, oh - someone found my blog by searching for "cat in US which kills sick people in 2 hours." What's THAT about?!? They were from Saudi Arabia, if that helps. Is there some kind of urban legend about that? :O

Snape kills Dumbledore!

No, this post does not contain spoilers for HP7. Even if I really were that big of a jerk, I'd only have a handful of things to say, since as of right now I'm only on page 58 (we buy one copy when each new book comes out, and this year Brett got to read it first).

If you haven't read book six yet though, I apologize for the spoiler in the title. Actually, no, I don't. If you actually care about the Harry Potter series, you should've read the fucking books by now.

Even if you can't afford them, your library probably has them, and they've had book six long enough for you to work your way through their queue. If you're busy, have a learning disability, or are blind, they're available on cd (highly recommended, btw - they're awesome on cd), and if you're deaf AND blind they're available IN BRAILLE. They're also available in a guhgillion languages. Even if you've been in a coma for the last two years and couldn't possibly have read HP6 during that time, if you're reading ths blog post you're clearly capable of Pottering it up NOW, so why the hell are you reading THIS instead of book six?!? NO EXCUSES, PEOPLE.

Anywho, so the past month has been a little busy for us, but things are starting to wind down a little bit, which is nice. I will recap some of the things that have gone on since my last post:

Le BBQ
We had a small BBQ celebration in honor of Brett's 28th birthday this year. Brett's grandma brought her chihuahua and it was cute; Kim brought her giant pregnant belly and it was cute too; Jon brought a Snickers cake which was nice because it was amazingly delicious, but less nice because Brett can't eat peanuts; we ate lots of food, lounged around, and then later played Clue and I think Balderdash or something. Or Balderdash first, and then Clue. I don't remember - it was like, a month ago. I barely remember who came.

I *do* remember that there were brats, though. Big, juicy, delectable brats. I don't know how many I ate, but Brad ate the last one. And for that, I commend him. I can never bring myself to eat the last one of anything at parties. I'm sorry Shannon didn't get one though (since Brad ate the last one like 2 min before she showed up). They were hellsa good.

All in all it was a pretty good time.

Sunriver
The next weekend after Brett's Birthday BBQ, we drove BACK down to the Bend area for a family vacation (my side of the family) in Sunriver. In the eight days we were there Brett and I...

Golfed
Canoed
Played bocce ball
Played board games
Drove around
Walked around
Explored the High Desert Museum
Explored the Sunriver Nature Center
Helped with a big birthday celebration dinner for mom, Brian, and uncle Steve (my brother All slaughtered and cooked a lamb - it was like buttah)
Baked a three-layer super complicated cake complete with almond brittle, mascarpone frosting, and ganache filling (all made from scratch by the two of us in a vaca rental kitchen)
Had a girls' spa day (just me, not Brett)
Practiced acupuncture on half a dozen family members (just Brett, not me)

I'm sure we did other things too, but I think that's enough to list here. There ended up being 23 of us total (15/23 were my immediate family), split between three houses on the same street - it was really, really, REALLY great. Until Brett got some bad news on our last night in town.

Spokane
While we were out canoing the morning of our second-to-last day in Sunriver, Brett's maternal grandpa passed away. It happened very fast (which is nice, since he didn't have to suffer), but we weren't expecting to receive any calls of that nature so we left our cellphones in our room and didn't check them all day. Later that evening I checked my voice mail and had a message from Brett's mom, so he called her back and found out what happened. Obviously, he was pretty shaken up, but we still managed to have a great last night.

A couple of days after we returned home, we headed out again - this time for Brett's grandpa's funeral. I drove over to Spokane with Brett's dad (his mom had driven over earlier to help with all the arrangements), and Brett flew over after work.

It was really nice to see everyone and learn more about Gene (Brett's grandpa), and the service was great too - very personal.

I forget what the after-party part of a funeral is called, but that part was great too - Ali and I changed from our nice skirts into shorts in the middle of the street (modestly) because Brett's grandma's house was too crowded to change in, and we HAD to change, because it was (literally) 106 degrees outside. Even after I changed into shorts I was STILL sweaty.

Then we all ate Brett's grandpa's favorite sandwiches, as a tribute to him. Each sandwich took two hands to eat, contained 1 lb of lunch meat (turkey or roast beef, depending on which one you got), several thick slices of cheese, and was housed within two huge slabs of freshly baked sourdough bread. At least I think it was sourdough.

Anyway, the most important thing to note is that while most of us were content to just take half of one (they were pre-cut), Brett took two halves. That's right - in 106 degree weather, Brett still managed to consume a POUND of lunch meat. In addition to all the other home-style country-type food that was there. The man's stomach is a black hole, I swear.

Kwik-E-Mart
I almost forgot! On our way home from Sunriver (so before Spokane), we stopped at the 7-Eleven/Kwik-E-Mart in Seattle. It was really crowded, but super cute. All the collectible merchandise was sold out already, so we didn't buy anything, but we did take some pictures. When I do my next flickr upload (within the next few days), I'll include those.

The Order of the Phoenix
We were in Spokane when HP5 hit the theatres, but Megan was nice enough to buy us tickets while we were gone, so we saw it with her and Aaron the day after we got back. It did not disappoint. In fact, it rocked my socks. If I had to play favorites, five would be my favorite book, so I was worried about liking the movie. but it definitely delivered, and I can't wait to buy it and watch it over, and over, and over again. :D

Paige Hannah
Brad & Kim's baby (kid number three), Paige Hannah Loomis was delivered via c-section on 7/11, as scheduled. Paige is healthy and fine (and absolutely beautiful, I might add), but Kim's had some complications from the anesthesia (which she STILL hasn't fully recovered from, so think happy thoughts for her), and she had to stay in the hospital until just this past weekend.

So on Kim's birthday (a few days after Paige's), we went to visit them in the hospital. I got to hold Paige, Kim got a shot in the arm, and all in all it was a pretty nice visit. Except for the shot in the arm part, which didn't feel very good for Kim. The maternity ward at Providence looks *amazing* though, and I totally want to have our kids there.

The Merry Wives of Windsor
Last Thursday (this post is almost complete!) we went to see Jon in The Merry Wives of Windsor in Lynndale Park. We saw As You Like it at Lynndale last summer, and we're seeing Dan in The Merchant of Venice at the same location this Wednesday, with Shannon. I *looove* Shakespeare in the park. And I love Lynndale Park. And as Jon and Dan both know, I loves me some free theatre.

Seriously - who wants to pay $50 to sit still in a dark theatre in the city when you can see Shakespeare for FREE while eating a picnic (or in our case, Taco Bell) under a canopy of trees in the suburbs at dusk?!?

It was a great show and a perfect evening, and I'm hoping for more of the same this week as well. I highly advise that everyone in the area go at least once: they're playing Lynndale on Wednesday and Thursday, and then they won't be back again until next summer. A schedule with other locations listed can be found here.

And now...
I'm just about caught up. At some point recently I managed to finally sign up for Facebook (primarily because I'm so sick of all the r-tards on MySpace), so I've totally become addicted to that, and I'm having a good time using it to play games and waste time in all sorts of ways.

I got invited into Pownce. In all honesty I don't really know what I'm going to do with it, but other people want it, so naturally I wanted it too. We'll see if I actually use it - I think it's obvious (see top of right-hand column of this page) that I stopped using Twitter, and Pownce seems similar, but still slightly cooler, so I have hope that maybe it'll be more fun than Twitter is.

Jon calls Twitter "creepy" and Brett calls it "an abomination," and how much fun is it to miniblog when your own friends don't even like it?!? Not fun at all. But if they like Pownce better than Twitter, I'm sure I'll like it too.

What else...hmmm...obviously we bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, since it was the first thing I talked about. Brett read it literally all day Saturday - I went out and bought it at 7am ($20 at Fred Meyer, baybee) thinking I'd have at *least* 30 min or so to start reading it before Brett woke up, but when I got home he met me at the front door, snatched the book from my hands (it was his turn first, after all), and snuggled into the couch to start reading. He read pretty much non-stop until around 11pm or so, which is when he finished. I am NOT that fast of a reader (I can only stand to sit that still for short periods of time), but hopefully I'll finish by Wednesday, because that's when we're planning on handing it over to Dan to borrow, since he can't afford to buy his own copy right now (bah...actors).

And here we are! The end of the post. I could get into some TMI about the horrible, debilitating cramps I have right now, but I won't. I'll just end this post, carry my book and heating pad into the bedroom, and read some HP by flashlight while Brett sleeps next to me. Good night!!! :)

Things I'm grateful for today...

1) When I was midway through dying my hair today and I dropped the applicator bottle, it bounced once on the (open) toilet seat, fell onto its side on the (open) toilet seat, and spun halfway around the (open) toilet seat before I (eyes wide, heart pounding) caught it. I'm grateful that I wasn't left with the choice of either half-dyed hair or toilet-dyed hair. I'm also grateful to have been given the opportunity to once again reflect on Radio Lab's "Time" episode, and it's observations on the relativity of time.

2) I spent two hours weeding and pruning in our yard today, and ended up with a mosquito bite on my elbow and a nettle sting on my hand. As I was also doing laundry at the time (and was therefore wearing nothing but clogs and a knee-length dress), things could've been much worse. I'm grateful that they weren't.

3) While Brett was driving home from work today, he called me up to chat like he usually does. We talked for awhile and he was almost to our freeway exit when he said "Oh God! Ohmygod!"

The last time I'd heard him sound like that on the phone it was because someone had just hit him. It was a hit-and-run, and we still have the dent in the side of our car to prove it. :( THIS time however, his panic was due to the fact that someone had just hit the car directly BEHIND him. I am grateful that both husband and car made it home safe and sound today.

4) Last Sunday at the grocery store I was in a broccoli mood so I bought twice as much broccoli as we needed for this week's menu. The broccoli was for tonight's tofu and broccoli coconut curry over brown rice, and I figured we'd just use all the broccoli tonight and end up eating a crap-load of veg (pun INTENDED).

Brett is always the one who cooks on curry night (he's the curry *king*), and tonight he BURNED the broccoli. The bottom broccoli was inedible, but the rest was fine. And since I'd bought double, we still had plenty. I'm grateful that I got my veggies tonight.

5) I've been trying to listen to Netflix's advice lately, so I've been working my way through a list of my "recommended" films. I queued "V for Vendetta" blindly a few weeks ago, and we watched it tonight. At first I thought it was going to be another "Ultraviolet" BOMB (which they recommended and I did not like), and Brett even said at one point that he wouldn't object to turning it off, but we stuck it out and in the end it wasn't bad. Well, it sucked a little, but I liked the message. Stick it to the man!!! I'm grateful that we have Netflix, and that for the most part they're good at recommending films I appreciate watching.

6) I could go on mentioning how grateful I am for this and that...everything from my homemaker status to the mites on my eyelashes, but this is my blog, and I don't feel like it. Instead, I'll mention one last thing:

Today while eating lunch, I happened across a YouTube video of quite possibly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. If you're British (or more pop-savvy than me), you've probably already seen the clips I've posted below, but if you haven't seen them, you need to. The first clip made me cry. No joke. Real tears of joy. The second clip is just to confirm for you that the feeling you get from the first clip, that for that moment in time something truly and purely beautiful was occurring, was felt by the original television audience as well. I'm grateful for Paul Potts. :)

Boo.

I wanted to spend this weekend doing yard work, but it's raining, and apparently it's going to rain all weekend, so instead we're cleaning the basement to make room for our new (to us, courtesy of Tony) piano. Woo!

Our big, open basement *should* be neatly organized into sections as a media area (tv, ps2, stereo), music area (keyboard, cello, music stand, clarinet, trumpet, and now piano), workout area (weight bench, treadmill, yoga ball, etc.), and art area (lots of art supplies), but right now it's all sort of mixed together in a messy, cluttered way, with my art area looking the worst, since right now it's more a landfill for holiday decorations than a real work space. I wouldn't paint my nails down there right now, let alone a large canvas. I have eleven canvases down there to paint right now, and three of them are about 3'x3'. If we actually get the place cleaned up this weekend, it'll be nice to start working on those, because they're *supposed to* go in our livingroom. That's why (in case you've seen and noticed) the walls are so bare up there.

Anyway, our trip to Bend this week was pretty nice, despite the fact that I was sick for most of it (maybe a stomach bug, maybe something I ate - we're still not sure), and despite the 16 or so hours we spent in the car. The drive was horrible, but the scenery was spectacular. I took pictures. I'll probably flickr them someday.

I thought that being in Bend this week would make me less excited about our trip to Sunriver in two weeks (since they're practically the same place), but I actually think it made me MORE excited. Bend was about staying in a swanky hotel at a swanky mall and shopping and eating out (and working, for Brett), and Sunriver will be a bunch of family (28 of us) staying in houses at the resort and golfing, fishing, rafting, spa-ing, etc. Very different. And it's fun to travel, especially when it's affordable. Well, these days pretty much ONLY if it's affordable.

Next spring, I think I want to go to California - to go to Maker Faire (in San Fran), visit Sam (in Sunnyvale), visit Shannon at Chapman (in Orange, if she decides to go), and go to my favorite "zoo" of all time: San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. It'd be a long drive, but we wouldn't do it all in one day, so it might not seem so bad. Besides, Seattle to San Francisco is a LOT cheaper than Seattle to...just about anywhere else.

Oh! Brett's home from work!!! :D

Quickly, quickly...

Do to some unexpected circumstances (Brett forgot to have his admin book a flight), I will be joining Brett on a road trip down to Bend tomorrow morning. We'll be gone for a few days and I really need to start some laundry so I can pack, but I wanted to put up a quick post before I shut my computer down.

I'm sleepy. Brett's sleeping. Today we picked up the rental car for our trip (it's a business trip, so we're not using our own car), did some painting (of pottery, at the new pottery place in town), some bubble tea drinking (at the place next to the new pottery place in town), some grocery shopping, some driving around, some yard work, and Brett got a haircut. I also picked a few dozen snails off our front walk - what's THAT about?

I went out there this morning and they were all over the place, so I tossed a bunch of them in a bucket and threw them...away...somewhere... Then we went out for awhile and when we came back there were somehow MORE than before. So I repeated the above process. It was gross. Snails are gross. I'm sure they're venturing onto the dry, covered walk to get out of the rain, but it's only been drizzling and I've NEVER EVER seen this many snails out. Usually we might have one or two after the rain, but I guess this is what we get for not killing the one or two that we saw. Blech.

That's all I can think of to say for now...I had something I wanted to write about, but now I've forgotten it. Brett's passed out in the chair next to me and he's snoring...it's cute. Anyway, I've uploaded some more photos to flickr this weekend. Just a few - a couple of me (with zombie makeup!) and some of a trip we took to Seaside and Portland in 2006. I'll upload more when I have time - maybe in Bend while Brett's working?



I'm growing out my fingernails right now, and it hurts to hit shift with my pinky finger nail; my finger gets tired. Any suggestions on how to avoid this? Anyone? So far I've found that I just curl my pinky and use my knuckle, but my finger still gets tired.

One last thing, and then I really have to go be productive: for those of you who might care but might not know, Apple has opened a new product through iTunes called iTunes U. I haven't explored it much yet, but so far it seems like a really cool idea, especially for those of us who love to learn but don't want to spend the time/money to take a class right now.

Okay, now I'm gonna go pack for reals.

The thing from Tony. (Part I)

Tony tagged me to answer some blogger questiony things, but I spent waaay too long "answering" the first one, so I'm leaving the second one for...tomorrow? But I'm not making any promises.

Question One: Why do you blog?
Urm...I think originally I did it for more/better site content. Let's take a look back...

When I built my first website back in 1996 (whoa! more than 10 years ago!), it was a piece of crap. An even bigger piece of crap than this one. I was hosted on Angelfire, and I had blinking text, a collection of animated gifs scavenged from other sites, an overly-complex background image (also stolen from another site), and a small library of plain-text jokes, stories, and surveys that I'd copied from my telnet and HoTMaiL (remember when they wrote it that way?) email accounts. I almost wish I still had that old steaming pile of a site, but I don't. I don't even remember what the url was - I tried guessing just now, but if it still exists, I can't find it.

I got tired of Angelfire always having problems with their shit, so I moved my site to Geocities in 1997. They sucked worse. Geocities was TERRIBLE. I thought it was stupid that I had to say my site was like, geocities/stupidcity/catcates or whatever the url was at the time (I really should've held on to that stuff, just for amusement's sake), and when they started using popup ads, I bailed.

I used my school account (originally wwu.edu/~u163597, then later wwu.edu/~cat) from the spring of 1997 until about spring of 2003. When I switched over from geocities I decided to make a fresh start, and create a site that looked attractive and cool, so I ditched all of the pirated and/or animated images, and spent HOURS (sometimes I was in the computer lab overnight) learning photoshop and html, practicing different tricks and techniques, and creating, refining, and changing new site designs.

What I ended up with was a blah website with graphics that used about 3,000 photoshop filters each. For awhile it was purple on black, then for a long time it was blue on black, then gray on black, then brick, cream, and black, then it was something weird and gross like ultra shiny 3-D looking royal blue graphics on periwinkle. Then I started messing around with the art department's scanners and doing weird found-object style graphics on white.

I was frustrated because I really wanted to have a cool website, but it just wasn't working out. So I did a lot of thinking and web surfing, and what I realized was this: my content was crap.

Most of my site designs had a splash page, a home page with a few lines of text, an email link, a resume, the occasional essay or image, and not much else. Inspired mainly by the now-defunct Anarchista.com, I decided to create categories on my site where I would focus on specific types of content - recipes, photos, art projects, an autobiography, and (drum roll please...) a JOURNAL.

That idea flopped. I couldn't cook, and had no recipes. Flickr hadn't been born yet, so I had to host my photos on my school account, and consequently there weren't very many. I was in art school, but hardly ever bothered to photograph any of my non-digital work, so I only had a few links to example websites, flash movies, and photoshop images. And I never really got around to creating a bio, but I DID create a journal.

Initially I tried keeping it up manually (by adding text into an html table that I then manually re-uploaded after every new entry - blech), and then I tried LiveJournal. As you can see, that didn't last long. Free LiveJournal is, as Sam and Brett would put it, pretty "G." In order to fully customize it, you had to pay. We were living on Top Ramen and stale baked goods at the time, so I wasn't about to PAY for my journal.

But eventually I HAD to create a good website, because I chose new media as my graphic design concentration within the art department. We had to have online portfolios to graduate. So I created an online portfolio, and ditched the journal idea. It's on a CD somewhere, but as I've already wasted enough of my time on this post, I'm not going to upload it. If you went to my website between 2001 and 2004, you may have seen it...I forget exactly when I took it off my site.

Initially I had a dope-ass splash page that I loved, but since I wasn't an illustration major (and I was therefore not patient enough to create a whole website in that theme), I scrapped that idea, got rid of the personal link completely (since I'd scrapped the journal and couldn't think of a good bio), and went with a strange, minimalist, photographic-squares-on-white theme for my portfolio instead.

I graduated from WWU Spring of 2002 and I knew eventually they'd do some housekeeping and delete my account, so I purchased catjackson.net in early 2003. Eventually I got bored with the idea of using it only to house my portfolio, and decided to go back to using it primarily as personal space. I didn't use LiveJournal for very long back in 2001, but I had really liked the concept of an online journal, so I decided to try that out again, as an easy way to create content.

At the time (as is evident in my first Blogger post), I thought "Blogging" was something you could only do through Blogger. I've never really been hip with the cool lingo. But I enjoyed "Blogging," and it quickly became the main content (and later the only content, despite my sporadic posts) of my site.

So now...here we are. Back to the reason I gave in the very first sentence of this ridiculously long answer: I wanted more/better site content. And though my blog only fits in the "better" category because it's better than nothing, it definitely helped me achieve the "more" goal.

And there you have it - an impromptu, completely unrequested, History of Cat's Online Existence.

Il fait TROP CHAUD!

I feel like a slug. It's too hot, and I just don't have the energy to do...anything. Right now (at 11pm) all of our lights are off, most of our windows are open, I have one fan pointed directly at me, Brett has another fan pointed directly at him (we're in the same room, and these are large fans), and we're STILL uncomfortably hot.

We've been very busy lately, and I've spent hardly any time online in the past few weeks. Some things that have happened since my last post:

NAFY Fundraiser
Chris & Sarah, Maria & Indra, Jeff, All, Mike, Joe, Sam, and Brett & I (aka "the sibs") gathered in Portland a few weeks ago to show support for our parents and fork over some cash for New Avenues For Youth. John Oliver performed and was hilarious. Oma (my mom's mom) was there as well, and didn't find him as hilarious as us gd liberals did, so I made sure to laugh extra hard to make up for it.

Japanese & Chinese Gardens
The day after the NAFY event, Marindra, Brett, and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and spend some time in Portland's Japanese and Chinese gardens. They were beautiful, and I'll post pictures to flickr soon, I swear. I really need to update my flickr photos.

After the gardens we met up with Oma, mom, and Mike for some late dim sum, at which point I realized just how sunburned I'd gotten. I started the morning in a tank top and light sweater (with no intention of spending much time outside and therefore no intention of taking off my sweater), and we decided to go to the gardens on a whim while out at breakfast. I'd put sunscreen on my face, but not my arms, so when I took off my sweater while walking through the Japanese garden (it was so hot!), my arms got FRIED. Enough to make me sun sick when we got back to the hotel after dim sum. By dinner I looked like I had lobster arms, and by breakfast the next morning my shoulders were shiny and crisp. My bra straps cut little angry red cracks into them, and Brett kept forgetting how burnt I was and squeezing my shoulders affectionately, and I would make angry noises at him. It was horrible. By the end of the weekend they were peeling BADLY, and as I write this I STILL see peely bits all the way down to my forearms, even though I've been exfoliating and moisturizing obsessively. Boo.

Seaside
After Portland we went to Seaside, which was fabulously calm. Mom, Oma, Brian, and Brian's brother Steve were there (as well as Brett and I). We arranged and rearranged mom's new collection of glassybaby about a million times, chatted about random things, shopped, enjoyed the nice cool Seaside weather, beach combed, and slept in late. We basically did NOTHING all weekend, and it was very relaxing.

On the way home from Seaside we stopped at Custard King for the first time. In the past, I've been known to make fun of Custard King because frankly, I don't have much need for drive-in custard. But Brett had a hankerin', so we stopped by. He got custard and some sort of giant burger (I think it was a "King" burger or something), and I got fries and a chicken sammich. All items purchased were well worth the non-dollar-menu price. We will definitely go again, but I really wish they had dairy-free custard. :( Oh! Speaking of places that make dairy-free accommodations...

Cacao
Okay, so rewind back to our visit to Portland. While we were there, we stopped in a new shop down by Powell's called Cacao - Drink Chocolate. If ever there was an appropriate time to say OMG, it would be in describing this place. O. M. G. As I leave behind my youth (*sniffle, sniffle*), I find myself drawn less to chocolate-as-candy, and more to chocolate-as-...wine? gastronomic artform? cultural experience? I'm not sure how to describe it in words, but Cacao does an excellent job describing it in inventory.

They have beautiful chocolates from all over the world; some large bars, some medium, small, or even packs of tiny sample bars so you can try lots of flavors without ending up with way too much chocolate to eat. Brett and I came away with a full sized, 41% cacao "Naga" bar ("sweet Indian curry powder, coconut flakes, deep milk chocolate"), a set of eight tiny 52% cacao bars infused with cardamome, cumin, anis, and ginger (one spice per bar, two bars per spice), and a set of ten tiny 75% cacao bars titled "Des Pyramide Tropiques" because each bar is made with chocolate from a different locale (Papouasie, Indonesie, Sao Tome, Trinidad, Venezuela, Tanzanie, Ghana, Madagascar, Colombie, and Equateur).

We've since eaten the whole Naga bar (which was delicious and not at all strange), a cardamome bar (which was really comforting, almost like gingerbread), and a cumin bar (good - almost like the naga bar, but simpler, smoother, and less sweet). We've been too busy to sit down together and try the other bars, so they'll have to wait for now.

But I digress. My original intention in bringing up Cacao was to say that not only do they serve their popular "drinking chocolate" (melted chocolate mixed with cream, milk, and a variety of optional spices, served in an espresso glass), but they also have "hot chocolate" (less chocolate, no cream, optional soy milk instead of regular milk, and a larger mug). I had a sip of Brett's spicy drinking chocolate (he picked a mix of chilies and ginger), and almost a whole mug (it was huge and very rich) of soy hot chocolate. Brett's drinking chocolate was sophisticated, complex, and amazing - like chocolate's answer to good espresso. But the soy hot chocolate was the creamiest, richest, most heavenly hot chocolate I've ever had, and my stomach didn't complain at all.

Whenever we go to Ben & Jerry's I'm always left with my choice of fruit sorbet or fruit sorbet while everyone else gets sundaes made with delicious ice creams filled with chunks and swirls, and topped with gooey fudge. I hate going to Ben & Jerry's. Love their contributions to society; hate their lack of rice or soy ice creams. How hard would it be to have ONE frigging flavor of soy-based ice cream?!? Seriously?!? So you can imagine my delight at the thoughtfulness of Cacao's owners. :)

Anyway, moving on...

Birthday Shenanigans
After we got back from Seaside, it was my birthday. Well, Brett's dad's birthday first (May 23rd), and then mine (May 24th). So we went out for Thai food with Brett's parents and sister, and exchanged pressies. I got some gift certificates, and some gardening supplies (since I'm trying to learn to garden).

Another plug - we went to the new Thai restaurant in town...I forget what it's called, but it's two doors down from Noble Palace...if you live in M'ville you'll know where that is, if you don't, it probably doesn't matter. It's NOT Mai's. That place is grode. This new Thai place is great - we've eaten there three times now, and every time we've gone the service, atmosphere, and food have all been top notch. I highly recommend it. AND! They have Shirley Temples. I get one every time. ♥ :D

So the Thai food was on Brett's dad's b'day, not mine. My b'day was the next day, and I mostly just sat around watching tv by myself. All of my presents (awesome as they are) came either before or after my actual birthday, so the whole day kind of felt like Christmas afternoon. A couple of people called, I got a couple of cards, some emails, some myspace action, and Brett made dinner (spaghetti) when he got home from work.

I'd pooh-poohed the idea of a big party because I knew I'd be doing most of the work for it, but at the last minute I changed my mind and decided that I wanted more pomp and circumstance in my honor, so Brett threw an impromptu get together with Shannon, Dan, and the two of us. The theme of the party was a combination of sloth and gluttony (sluttony? that sounds bad...) where we ate tiny eclairs, chocolate cake, pizza, pop, and crackers, and sat around talking and watching a marathon of "What Not To Wear." It was perfect. And now I'm 29, which still feels strange and foreign.

The Camera
Mom & Brian, Brett, and my grandpa Joe all chipped in to get me my first digital SLR camera. Woo! Actually, it's my first SLR camera period. I've only ever used point & shoot cameras, but I love my new camera SO MUCH. I'm really ignorant when it comes to photographic lingo and technique and all that, so I was worried that I'd have trouble using it, but it's been easy as pie. Like taking candy from a baby. Or rather, like taking a picture of someone taking candy from a baby.

I knew this gift was coming in advance, so I had time to really research what I wanted. Because of my tiny hands (it has a small body), lack of skillz, and love of Nikon, I chose the Nikon D40. I did NOT go for the D40x because the ONLY difference is that it's 10 megapixels instead of 6. I have no need for a 10 megapixel camera. Imagine megapixels like...well, like the size of a johnson. You should really leave 10 for the professionals, because it may sound nice in theory, but ultimately it's more trouble than it's worth.

We ordered the camera in a special package from Wolf/Ritz Camera that came with a body, two lenses (18-55 & 55-200), a camera bag, some instructional DVDs, a lens hood, and all the normal caps, cables, and random accessories. We also ordered an extra battery (I think I suffer from some sort of battery charging impairment, because I always forget to charge my shit until it's either dead or dying) and a 2gb sandisk extreme III SD card.

I'd heard some bad stuff from several people about Nikon SLRs being abnormally confusing to use, but my point & shoot is a Nikon, and though this one is definitely more complicated, a lot of the basic symbols and functions are similar enough that it hasn't been a problem. Yay new camera!

Turkey
We ate almost an entire 20 lbs turkey this week. Not all at once, though. We're not THAT fat.

Brett's mom accidentally bought an extra turkey last Thanksgiving, and it's been in our freezer but was due to expire in June, so we thought we should eat it while we still could. Brett was going to grill it, but because we didn't think of it until the night before we wanted to make it, he didn't feel like he had time to properly educate himself on the art of rotisserie cooking. So he was going to grill it in our non-stick roasting pan that, according to the manufacturer, is oven safe up to 425 and is NOT broiler safe. Because the care information didn't mention that it wasn't GRILL safe Brett insisted he should be allowed to try it, but I argued that when left without confirmation we should err on the safe side and use the oven. If a roasting pan were grill safe, don't you think it would advertise itself as such? So I said no way. He grumbled, but agreed to oven roast it as long as we brined it first, which we did. And it was delicious.

I'm a little tired of turkey sandwiches now, but so far we've also had regular turkey dinner (twice - complete with cranberries and stuffing), turkey soup with wild rice, turkey stuffed quesadillas (it tasted like chicken), and turkey & broccoli coconut curry (it tasted like duck). I think we have about a pound and a half left, which is pretty good. And we spend about $50 on groceries last week, which is even better.

Um...
I can't think of much else to say...we went to Marindra's for a BBQ with some of the other sibs last night, it was very enjoyable...our brother Jeff was in town with his girlfriend Tara, who we'd never met. She is awesome, which is great.

Today we did some stuff around the house, then we got too hot to work, so we laid around in the living room for awhile not wanting to move. I did some research online for one of my brothers at my mom's request, I worked on some event planning stuff for our trip to Sunriver at the end of the month, I sent an evite out to my near-by sibs for a yard work party at our house next weekend (muahaha), Brett worked on some stuff for an OM reunion-type thing he's doing in August, we looked up some flight info for his business trip to Bend the week after next, we watched The Grudge II (it sucked)...and...that' all I can remember. Now Brett's asleep, and in a few minutes, I'll probably be asleep too. Good night! :)

Feeling Antsy. (and some other things.)

*******UPDATE*******

Okay, so I wrote this post on 5/10/2007, but I didn't have time to finish it, and I KEEP not having time to finish it, and we're going out of town tomorrow, so I figured I'd post it anyway, as is.

Maybe if I get some spare time while we're traveling (first to Portland, then to Seaside) I'll post then too, but since I'm not sure if that will happen I figured I should post now. Especially since it's been a million years since my last post. I have a lot of stuff to say, but I wish I could just post little bits at a time, so it wouldn't take so much time.

I know I COULD post little bits at a time, but I have a hard time stopping myself once I start typing - you know how it goes. Or maybe you don't. Who knows. Anyway, I have to go pack, because we're leaving first thing in the AM. Bye! :)

********************


In the past few weeks I've been SUPER busy. Like, busy enough to actually call what I do (homemaking) a job. Or I've been hanging out with other people. Or outside. Or all of the above. Spring is HERE! :D And I've had things I've wanted to write about, but I haven't had time to sit down and write them. But today I'm feeling a little caged in (I'll talk about that next), so I figured it's as good a time as any to write a blog post.

There are ants all over our front walk.
This is why I feel caged in. I'm deathly allergic to fire ants (which we don't have in Washington), and even though I was never tested for other ant venom (do other ants HAVE venom?), I still get, well, antsy around them. Worse still: These are CARPENTER ants.

I was bitten by a carpenter ant a couple of years ago and nothing happened, but the bite didn't even swell up, so I think it just pinched me, and that it didn't actually use any venom. So even though I figure it'll *probably* be fine, I'm still a little scared of them. I should really just get tested for a bunch of venoms, so I'll know for sure. I've never been stung by a bee either, so I don't even know if I'm allergic to those. Blah.

So right now I'm home alone with tons of giant, wood-boring ants swarming around in front of the house that I own and live in, I have no epi-pens (just to make me feel safe), and I sprayed Raid all over the place (part of an "Ant & Roach" can, and an ENTIRE "Wasp and Hornet" can) until I ran out, and more ants just keep showing up.

After I ran out of Raid, I tried spraying them with kitchen cleaner (we use organic, so it of course did NOTHING to stop them), and since then I've been going out every half an hour to smash them with Brett's flip flops. I'm not using MY shoes, because that's gross. Besides, his are bigger, so they make me feel safer.

I hate squishing bugs SO MUCH. Part of it is that despite their tiny, invertebrate status, I really do see them as animals. You may roll your eyes at that, but it's true! They may live seemingly robotic, somewhat grody little lives, but each one of them has a brain and a life force, just like you and me. When an ant realizes you're trying to smoosh it, it runs around all panicked and crazy, just like a person would, if they were about to be smooshed.

Still though, I've already demonstrated that I'm cool with poisoning them to death (ants, not people), so here's where I explain the OTHER part of why I hate squishing bugs.

It's that SOUND. The *pop!* of an exoskeleton cracking open in a fountain of carnage. The *crunch!* of broken, amputated limbs. The *shriek!* of agony as their life flashes before their (sometimes compound) eyes. Okay, maybe there's no audible shrieking, but still! It's fucking gross. And it makes me feel bad. And a little gaggy.

Every time I go out there I see fewer and fewer of them, but knowing ants, that's because it's getting cooler as the afternoon progresses, not because I've actually had a negative impact on their workforce. Ants are AWESOME at workforce management.

We have a dead stump that's only a few feet away from the front of our house, so I'm crossing my fingers that when we take it out tomorrow we'll find the nest there, but if not...should we call an exterminator? Should we call an exterminator anyway? Infestations are lame.

As a kid in the south, I learned that if you throw raw grits on an ant hill it will kill them, because they eat the grits, the grits expand, and *pop!* the ants explode. It works nicely on fire ants, so I figure it'll work on carpenter ants too. So tonight I think I'll have Brett pick up some more Raid, maybe some bait traps, and some polenta (as we call it in the north) on his way home from work. Then tomorrow: WAR.

Speaking of dead animals...
Last Thursday I was having an amazingly good day. The sun was shining, the house was clean, some of my lavender seedlings had started to sprout new leaves, and the weekend was only one day away.

Usually when I wander around the house during the day, our kitties follow me and hang out in whatever room I'm in. So since I spent most of the morning in the living room and bar, I was a little confused when I walked in our master bedroom to pee (in the bathroom, not the bedroom), and I saw both of them in there; one on the window sill, and the other on a cat tower that sits next to an exterior glass door.

They didn't look freaked out or anything, just curious about something outside, so I gave one of them a head scratch, glanced outside (saw nothing), and left. I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water and I heard *something* outside while I was in there, but I looked outside and again saw nothing, so I figured it was just a neighbor doing yard work or something.

I stayed in the kitchen for most of the afternoon - I made a roast, baked hamburger buns from scratch, baked a loaf of cheesy bread from scratch, did some cleaning, and mostly just enjoyed the sunshine pouring in through the windows, and the new Mika album on my ipod.

It was truly a perfect day. And what happens when things seem perfect? Bad Things.

Brett comes home. We greet each other warmly, he gushes about how nice it is when the house smells like bread, we dance around in the kitchen a little bit, and he says he's going to go clean out the hot tub, because a repairman was coming the next day to replace our pump.

Brett goes outside, and I continue my happy bustling in the kitchen. Brett bolts back inside, and says, "OH. MY. GOD." I am scared and startled. His face is pale. His eyes are huge and round. "A SQUIRREL DROWNED IN OUR HOT TUB," he says.

I honestly don't remember what I said at that point. Panic, disgust, sadness, disgust, guilt, disgust, disgust, disgust...a million emotions flooded into my brain at once. Where do emotions come from? Are they chemicals? Anyway. The point is - I was disgusted. Panicked, and disgusted. Brett was really more upset and sad than disgusted, but he did his fair share of cootie dancing too.

So we made a 911 call to our local hot tub expert, and at his advice we scooped out the squirrel, cleaned the hot tub with bromine, cleaned the hot tub with bleach, cleaned the hot tub with bromine, and then used it. Well, Brett did anyway. I think of squirrels as rats with bushy tails, so I'm still feeling a bit skiddish about it.

Luckily the squirrel hadn't been in there long - the noises the kitties and I heard that afternoon were almost surely the squirrel fighting for it's life. Brett had left the cover off the night before because he knew he was going to clean it (plus it had mostly already been drained, so there was only about 2' of water), and the squirrel must've fallen in.

It was in rigor when he scooped it out, and we threw it in a garbage bag and may or may not have hid it in our garbage. Depending on whether or not it's legal to hide dead animals in your garbage. Why can you put a turkey carcass in your garbage but not a squirrel? Don't rats die in garbage cans all the time? I bet they do.

Anyway, so ants and squirrels aside, not much is up with me

My Favorites (aka The Girliest Post EVER)

As I mentioned a few months ago, one of my favorite podcasts to listen to is Lip Gloss and Laptops. I like this podcast for a lot of reasons, but one of the most important reasons is their creative, experimental, and enjoyable take on beauty.

They never say things that make me feel insecure, they never make me feel like I NEED more stuff, and listening to their podcasts always leave me feeling happy, relaxed, and like I've had a nice shot of Girl Power, right in the arm. They treat beauty like a fun hobby, which is how I treat it, so I like their style.

Next week's LGL episode is scheduled to be "Listener Favorites," so the girls have asked everyone to turn in a list of their favorite products. I just emailed them my list today so it might be too late to make it into the episode (they record each week's podcast the Friday beforehand), but I had SO MUCH fun making it that I thought I'd share it here too.

It seems a little long (so I hope it's not too boring), but I genuinely like everything listed here. If you have any questions about a product that you think I can answer, or you have a favorite product you'd like to share information about, feel free to comment! :)

HAIR
Giovanni 50:50 Balanced Shampoo I have to use SLS-free shampoo (otherwise my scalp gets itchy and flaky, and my skin breaks out), and I've found this to be a pretty good one. It works okay with my color treated hair, and doesn't seem to build up OR dry it out. It also has a nice scent.

Alba Hawaiian Gardenia Hydrating Hair Conditioner This is a great daily conditioner. Sometimes it's a little difficult to get it out of the non-squeezable bottle, but it's worth the effort. It leaves my hair soft, shiny, and smelling fresh and clean.

Fresh Hair Cream - Anti-Frizz I've tried a plethora of products, both high-end and discount, and this is the ONLY anti-frizz product that doesn't break me out. It doesn't leave my hair super glossy like a silicone gel would, but it does leave it silky smooth and definitely NOT frizzy. It looks very natural, and has a great (though powerful) scent. A little goes a long way.

Revlon RV484 Ion 1875-Watt Hair Dryer This has been my holy grail hair dryer for about four years. I love it. I'm on my second one (the first lasted about 2.5 years), and the one I'm using now isn't showing any signs of wear or damage. Revlon has a new dryer with Tourmaline that I'm kind of interested in trying, but honestly I couldn't really ask for a better dryer than the one I'm already using. It get my hair dry super fast, doesn't seem to do much damage (despite the fact that I always use it on High), and isn't too heavy. It also comes with a concentrator attachment, which I find VERY helpful.

Avalon Organics Therapeutic Shampoo, Nourishing Lavender This is Brett's holy grail shampoo. His skin is even more sensitive than mine, but this shampoo doesn't irritate his scalp at all. He doesn't even have to use conditioner with it.

Jonathan Product Dirt Texturizing Paste Brett's current favorite hair product. He was using Sumotech before, but the smell was a little too strong for both of us, and he said it was kind of difficult to wash out. Dirt has a really mild (almost non-existent) smell, makes his short, thick hair silky and manageable, and washes out easily. I wouldn't recommend using this on long hair.

FACIAL CARE
DDF-Doctor's Dermatologic Formula Sulfur Therapeutic Mask I'm so addicted to this stuff, it's not even funny. I use it as a spot treatment every night, and as a clarifying mask during a certain "period" of time as well. It calms down zits FAST, and keeps new ones from forming.

Murad Clarifying Cleanser A really gentle cleanser that does a good job washing off my makeup, but doesn't irritate my sensitive skin.

Murad Vitalic Energizing Pomegranate Moisturizer (SPF 15) Kind of a "meh" lotion as far as special features go, but it's hard for me to find a facial moisturizer that doesn't make my skin crawl (especially one with SPF), and this one doesn't. It also comes in a pretty good-sized tube, and works well under makeup.

La Cross Tini-Tweeze Tweezers, Point Tip The best tweezers EVER. They're tiny enough to fit in any pocket or purse, come with a protective cover (probably so you don't stab yourself), and get a really precise, strong grip on tiny little eyebrow hairs. I have multiple pairs of these. Oh! They also work really well for splinter removal.

Rosebud Perfume Co. Rosebud Salve I will never, ever, ever use chapstick again. My lips used to get so chapped in the winter that they sometimes split and bled, but in the three years that I've been using Rosebud Salve they've NEVER cracked ONCE. Sometimes they do feel a little chapped, but I just put on some Salve and they feel fine again. I've even used it on the end of my chapped nose when I get colds, and it helps there too. The Minted and Strawberry varieties are good as well, but I don't feel like the Strawberry one (which is a balm) is as moisturizing, and the Minted one is fun sometimes (it's kind of tingly), but I find the flavor a little off-putting for every day use.

Fusion Beauty LipFusion Lip Plump The Marysville Costco carries these in two packs for about $35. I bought a couple from Sephora at full price before our Costco opened, and I haven't noticed a difference in the formulas. What I like about LipFusion is that it's a really moisturizing, really good tasting, really nice looking clear gloss. I haven't noticed any change in my lip plumpness, but before I started using it I'd never gotten compliments on my lips, and now I get them all the time. So go figure - maybe it IS doing something.

MAKEUP
Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler I've tried other eyelash curlers, and they do NOT fit my eye shape correctly. They're too round for my almond eyes, and they don't curl my lashes in a flattering way. Before I tried this curler I thought eyelash curlers were stupid, but after I got this one (as a last ditch effort), I was like, "Ah. I see!" Now I *always* curl my lashes before I apply mascara. With the right curler, it makes such a difference!

Max Factor Volume Couture Mascara, Soft Black 802 I've never bought a high-end mascara, so I honestly don't know if this is comparably good or not, but it's definitely better than all the other drugstore ones I've tried. Well, this, and Max Factor's Lash Perfection. That one's good too. I don't get the waterproof kind, but it still stays on really, really well. Since it's not waterproof, it removes easily with just soap and water, but if I get a little teary from a sad movie or a spicy dinner, it doesn't smudge. I noticed today that it couldn't hold up to a severe hay fever attack, but I don't know if even a waterproof mascara could've held up to the amount of tears streaming from my eyes this afternoon. Bonus: the bristles are made of some kind of rubbery stuff, so if you're clumsy like me, it hurts WAY less than a normal brush when you jab yourself in they eye.

Urban Decay Primer Potion As the Sephora girl told me when I bought this last year, "less is more." Dab a little of this stuff on your eyelids, smear it around, and voila! You have a mild, non-stingy, moderately concealing eyeshadow base. This stuff really does a great job of holding my eyeshadow in place. I can put on a little bit of shadow and it's still there at the end of the day, or I can put on a LOT of shadow, and find that in the end of the night it's all still where I put it.

Prescriptives Perfect Every Line Gel Eyeliner (Licorice) I've tried liquid liners, and I'm just not skilled enough to make them look right. This stuff is easy to use, and stays put nicely. I've even, um...fallen asleep without washing my face, and had it look great the second day too. Because I also didn't wash my face in the morning.

Prescriptives Fine Lining Brush The perfect eye liner brush for the perfect gel eyeliner (see above).

Prescriptives Virtually Fresh Skin Refining Makeup SPF 15 (B/R Natural Rose 23) I just switched to this foundation a few weeks ago, but I really like it. It gives good coverage but still looks really healthy and natural, and doesn't break me out any more than my old foundation (which was pretty good at not breaking me out, considering how sensitive my skin is). It also has SPF, which is important for us pale chicks.

Clinique Clarifying Makeup Clear Skin Formula (Pure Ivory) What I was using before I got the Prescriptives stuff mentioned above. Worked well, was okay on my sensitive skin, blended nicely, but contained no SPF, and didn't look quite as good as the Prescriptives stuff. Though it's still a really good deal for the price.

BECCA Creme Blush (Amaryllis) Powder blush always breaks me out, no matter how often I clean the brush. I used a Dior cream blush before this that was discontinued, and a Sephora girl turned me on to BECCA when I asked what the hell I was supposed to do without my Dior So Cheek. It's been about two years, and I've never looked back. This stuff doesn't break me out, blends well, and is SO easy to tote around, because it's so small, and because you don't need anything but your own fingers to apply it.

Smashbox Soft Lights (Smashing Halo) Sephora hasn't carried this shade for awhile, but I searched for it online so I could put up a link, and it looks like Nordstrom still carries it. I think most of the Soft Lights are supposed to be used as bronzers, but Smashing Halo is a pinky-goldy-violet iridescent white color, so I use it as a highlighter on my brow bones, and in the corners of my eyes. And the pan is HUGE, so it lasts awhile.

Revlon Brow Fantasy Pencil & Gel, Dark Brown#106 Most drugstore brow pencils look too reddish on me, but this one doesn't. It's a little dark, so I have to use it sparingly if I want to avoid looking too Madonna c. 1986, but for lightly filling in any sparse patches, it's perfect. And the gel (when also used with a light touch) gives a nice bit of extra definition as well.

Urban Decay Wallpaper Shadow Box, Urban Decay Skull Shadow Box, & Hard Candy Eye Candy Palette I think I'm starting to outgrow the glitteriness of most UD and HC eyeshadows, but I still love these palettes. Eyeshadow palettes are great because on the weekends you can toss on some foundation, throw a shadow palette in your purse, go to breakfast, put on a little neutral shadow in the car, go shopping, put on something a little bolder in the car, and go to a party. As long as you're not the one driving. The reason I love these palettes specifically is because they contain such a wide variety of colors, the pigments are great, and they're a steal for the price (esp. if you're like me and you usually get sick of an eyeshadow color before you finish the pan). I've found the UD colors much easier to blend than the HC ones, but the HC palette was cheaper, and contains colors that neither of my UD palettes have.

TheBalm Plump Your Pucker Tinted Gloss (Razz My Berry) I prefer gloss over lipstick, and this gloss delivers a great natural pink color. It's a little sparkly but not TOO sparkly, and it has a neat minty-fruit flavor. It's also not too sticky, seems to stay put (unless I lick it off), and is sheer enough to put on without a mirror, but also looks great layered over a lipstain.

LORAC Lip Polish (Delicious) This gloss has a slightly metallic sheen to it, and is the PERFECT pale pink shade for me. It's basically the same color as my lips, so all it does is add a metallic glossiness to them that makes me feel more polished and put together. I'm not really a fan of the nail-polish-style bottle, and Lip Polish doesn't taste neeearly as scrumptious as Lotsa Lip, but this shade has me hooked.

FRAGRANCE & BODY
Philosophy Senorita Margarita Hot Salt Scrub The one bad thing I have to say about this product is that you have to remember to put it on BEFORE you start the water. Because you put it on dry skin. Other than that, it's great. It smells AMAZINGLY good...kind of like a virgin margarita, and leaves my skin super soft and fresh, but without the oily residue that some other scrubs leave behind. It also doesn't gunk up the floor of my shower.

Soft & Dri PowerStripe + DriTec Antiperspirant Deodorant Invisible Solid, Kissed Peach I'm not a big sweater, but I AM a big stinker. Most deodorants leave something to be desired on me by the end of the day, but this one does not. In fact, *sniff, sniff* I put it on yesterday morning and I still haven't showered today, and I still smell fresh and clean. Plus the scent is really light so it doesn't compete with other fragrances, and the formula isn't as goopy as some other antiperspirants, so it's easier to wash off.

Crabtree & Evelyn La Source Hand Therapy My skin gets DRY. As in, crack-and-bleed dry. I still haven't found the perfect body lotion, but C&E's Hand Therapy is my favorite hand lotion. It keeps my dry hands soft and crack-free (ha, crack-free), absorbs quickly, and usually lasts until the next time I wash my hands with soap. I'm into the La Source scent right now, but before this I had Summer Hill, which smelled great too.

Fresh Sake This has quickly become my favorite "night out" fragrance. It makes me feel grown up, but not old lady. I described the scent on a previous post so I'm not going to do it here, but yep...this one's still a winner.

Fresh Sugar (& variations on) I go through phases with Sugar. Sometimes I favor one, then I change my mind and favor another...I just sprayed all of them at the same time just now, and I wish I hadn't. Wow that's a lot of perfume. Anyway, I recommend smelling all four varieties to decide which one you like best (or if you like them at all, because some people don't), but in my opinion, Sugar Blossom has the softest, most easy-to-take smell, Sugar Lychee has kind of a heady, florally, lychee-ish smell, Sugar Lemon smells kind of like a cross between lemon drops and lemon-scented cleaner (but in a good way!), and Sugar smells like sugar-coated lemon drops. None of them amazing staying power, but I *love* them as daytime fragrances. I feel like when I wear them I smell fresh and clean and ready to start my day.

Fresh Hesperides This is new and I just have a sample of it, but I love it. This is super citrusy, but with a hint of green thrown in to make it EXTRA fresh smelling. It smells crisp like grapefruit and...something else. Whatever it is, it smells like it would be great to wear to a BBQ or some other summertime event. Very refreshing, and very subtle.

Salvatore Ferragamo Incanto Charms I've smelled Shine and Dream too, and I like Charms way better. It has a light, sweet smell (which I clearly like), but it's more complex and mature than Fresh's Sugars. It also works really nicely with my body chemistry, and I love it for the spring and summer, even in the evenings. It's perfect in the heat, because it doesn't smell too sticky-sweet, or too heavy. Note: Sephora is selling all three (Incanto Charms, Shine, and Dream) in a pack of minis right now for super cheap, if you're interested.