Boo.

There was a horrible accident on the freeway just south of our exit this afternoon, so Brett isn't going to be home until late. Since the northbound freeway is closed, he's been trying surface roads for about an hour (along with half a million other people) and hasn't had any luck, so he'll be eating dinner in north Everett tonight. Which isn't a big deal I guess, since tonight is just pasta & salad - it's not like I've been baking or cooking for hours or something. I hope we don't know the jeep person, and I hope the bus person is okay.

There are several fatalities a year in our town from people crossing over from one side of the freeway to the other and crashing into oncoming traffic, and they always baffle me. How can you lose THAT MUCH control of your vehicle? I mean, I'd understand if it were a fluke thing once every few years where someone's axle breaks, or they hit an ice patch or SOMETHING, but these accidents usually seem to happen in/near spring and summer, and usually do NOT involve mechanical failure. Maybe people are just dumb...I don't know. But it's really sad.

Anyway, you're probably wondering (or not) why I didn't post anything on Friday or Monday. I don't really have a good reason, except that we've been doing some things around the house (decorating, painting, etc) so I've been busy and tired. We painted our guest bathroom a color that Benjamin Moore calls "Mystic Gold," I call "caramel," and Brett calls "baby diarrhea." But despite the name he chose for it, Brett still loves the way it looks. It matches perfectly with the pale peach colored tiles, the funky cream/tan/pale pink floor, and the dark wood. Oh, and the classy gold-toned faux-marble countertop. I'm thinking of doing a flickr set sometime soon that's just pics from around our house, so stay tuned. If I do, I'll put up a pic of the bathroom.

I'm also thinking of changing up the colors of my blog again, but since I'm almost too busy to even post, I'm trying not to think about it just yet.

Oh! In bizarre, karmic news...remember the neighbors I wrote about that cut down all their trees? We found out that they're also harassing the county to try and get the trees in our median cut down too. So far the county's done a nice job of ignoring them, but some of the other neighbors put up a stink about their anti-tree mentality, and you know what Mr. I Hate Trees said? "You worry about your trees, and let ME deal with these." Referring, of course, to the trees in the MEDIAN, that belong to the WHOLE COUNTY, not just to him. So anyway, the karma part. So after all this blahblahblah neighborhood hullabaloo that they've caused, these new neighbors had some sort of emergency at their house a few days ago. There were two ambulances; one left empty, and the other didn't, but we didn't see who they took.

No one's been home at their house night or day ever since, except for a car that was there for a short while this morning, but it wasn't one of their normal cars. Their stupid 10,000 watt porch light hasn't even been on. I feel badly for their family and all (especially if one of them died or something), but I don't think I'm going to try to get involved. If someone comes over and asks for help with something I'll say yes, but I'm not going to offer. It's not like we're buddy-buddy with them or anything.

What else happened this weekend...hmmm...I feel bad, but I really don't remember. I think we did SOMETHING on Friday, but I can't remember what. If we hung out with someone, it was awesome though. Clearly a night to remember.

Saturday I think we painted, but I don't remember what else we did. Oh! I know. We have a whole bunch of photo frames for the wall, so we picked photos for them. And Brett's mom brought over a dresser that she didn't want, and I LOVE it - it belongs only to me (Brett already has a dresser), and now I have a place to put my clothes other than in my closet or in a plastic storage tub.

I didn't have any scented drawer liners (I like it when my stuff smells good), so I just sprayed each drawer with a little Pink Jasmine, and now the whole thing smells delicious. I think that fragrance smells like stale poop when it dries down on my skin, but as a drawer scent it's AMAZING.

Sunday we tidied up around the house a little, then painted again, then went to Brett's parents' house for dinner (pot roast, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, and roasted veggies), and then went shopping for new linens & accessories for the guest bathroom. No luck in that department though - the only color we found that was close to what we wanted was out of our price range. Then we went grocery shopping and were in a super big rush because we got to the store at about 7:45, and the Simpsons was on at 8:00 and it was NEW!!! So we hurried around the store like crazy people and bought (using a pre-made grocery list):

penne pasta
light alfredo sauce
greens
steak
brussels sprouts
fresh sausages
squash
lamb
indian food packets
grapefruit
other fruit
yogurt for Brett
yogurt for Cat
milk
gallon of water
kashi bars

We also bought a couple of doughnuts and a bbq buritto (neither of which were on the list), AND I cut my hand on one of the new foil tops on my soy yogs, AND it bled all over the place, and we were STILL finished at the u-scan by 7:55. It definitely helped that everything but the pasta & sauce was located in the produce/organic section, but I think we can still be sufficiently impressed with ourselves. Fred Meyer is only about eight blocks south of our house, so we still made it home in time for me to wash, treat, and bandage my cut before the Simpsons started. Woohoo!

The grocery list thing has been working reeeally well for us lately - some of you may know that at first we had some problems with someone (I won't mention who) changing his mind at the last minute and deciding he DIDN'T want to eat what I'd planned for dinner, or the same someone buying waaay too much food for lunch and letting some of it go bad. We also had issues with forgetting to buy things and having to still go back later in the week, or going out to eat even though we had food at home, etc.

But for the past several weeks we've been able to successfully make it through with only ONE trip for groceries each week. And we've stuck to our planned menu every night (except for a couple of nights like this, where something unexpected has come up), and we've both had enough food for breakfast and lunch, and we're keeping our spending down, and hardly anything's gone bad.

This week we spent just over $54, and our dinner menu is/was:

Monday - indian food wraps w/ lamb & feta (we already had the tortillas & feta)
Tuesday - penne pasta w/ alfredo sauce & mixed green salad
Wednesday - steak, brussels sprouts, & wild rice (we already had the rice)
Thursday - tomato squash soup & grilled cheese sammies (the soup was frozen after we made it from scratch a few weeks ago, and we already have the bread & cheese for sammies)
Friday - grilled sausages (on hoagie rolls baked from scratch), grilled squash, and grilled asparagus (which we already had)

On that note, I think I'll go eat my lonely bowl of pasta, because I'm friggin starving.