Packing in the Snow

I spent over 2 hours working on this post and was almost finished with links and then lost power. I'm frustrated and not going to re-write it today.

Crazy Busy

Last weekend was a 3 day weekend for President's Day and Dave and I painted the former Matt/Aaron room to make into a "guest" room or my "office/scrap/MK/media" room when not otherwise occupied. Yes, I am moving back in with Dave and that fun began last weekend also. After 6 months of living apart, we decided we can't go another day without each other. Or, living in a rental a mile a away is more of a hassle than its worth since I started staying over there all the time after Aaron went to live with his Dad.

So we painted, shopped and moved stuff over the weekend. Sunday, I met Heather for lunch and the movies. We saw Because I Said So which was a total chic flick, but fun to see with a girlfriend. Dave stayed home and finally swapped out Jeff's door that we had to buy like 6 times because Lowe's kept drilling the hinge places wrong. Well, I guess this last time it was still wrong so he had to hand dig out the spots for the hinges. When I found that out, I was glad I was gone! That door has been a nightmare since Aaron kicked a hole in it 3 years ago when him and Jeff were home alone and having some sort of disagreement.

Work has been crazy busy also with a huge migration project getting started which will involve changing all the desktop pc's out in a time period of 2 weeks. Typically this takes 6 months to do, so it will be interesting. On top of this daunting project is the fact that my wonderful assistant who has been with us almost a year, put in his notice on Tuesday. I'm very happy that he's found a job more suited to what he's learning in school, but I'm totally bummed that he's leaving and even more stressed about the timing.

I've been following the Free Trinity google group that Adam Curry started which is the project to get his biodiesel station wagon driven across the country to visit podcasters and deliver the Mercedes to it's new owners which live on the East coast. It's very exciting project. I was disappointed that Barbara, the Project Manager said Trinity probably wouldn't come through Idaho because it's too cold here :( Bummer. But I'm on the list so we'll see!

I've still been using Twitter and having fun making badges for my various sites and even did one for this blog. My blog is becoming a real catch all for all my stuff and I even put links to the podcast on the sidebar. Speaking of the podcast, I am overdue for a show and have one all prepped, just need to find 30 minutes to sit down and record. Hopefully, I can get to it before I go visit Aaron in March so the next show will be the two of us again. I hate doing it without him, it seems odd to sit and talk alone. It was always the plan that we would sit and chat about whatever topic we were covering and that made it a lot more fun. I still enjoy it, but it's just not the same.

Happy Valentines!

A good friend of mine is going through a breakup with a man she's been involved with for over 3 years. It's such a difficult thing, I think it gets harder as you get older to move on to something new and let go of the old. But sometimes it is for the best and must be done.

For new sites this week, MightyFoodBlog.com is a food blog that looks interesting and Wellsphere.com is a social networking site of the health/fitness variety with a local emphasis on SF.

A new blackberry was released yesterday, the 8800. I've got the 8100 which is the Pearl. The 8700 is nice, it's a bit bigger and what I recommend for people who want a full keyboard. The pearl is nice and small, but a lot of people don't like the tiny keyboard and SureType typing. Once you use it a while I think it's very intuitive.

I've been listening to Trucker Tom and his adventures in Vista and am considering buying a copy for the old hard drive for my laptop. It would be fun to try. When I swapped out the hard drive it took 6 hours to reinstall windows and set up everything the way I had it. Not bad considering how much stuff I have and use, but that was ideal and had lots of prep and planning behind it. So not sure I want to invest that amount of time into it at this point.

With the return of 24, we've been enjoying pretty exciting TV. It's also fun to see our Chloe's namesake back on the screen saving Jack time after time. This season's addition of her ex-husband has been interesting.

I can hardly wait for my trip to NV to get Aaron and take him to CA for half of his Spring Break. We will see my Dad and Mom and then head to Sacramento and then possibly the Bay Area. Not sure how far we will go because we only have from Friday to Wednesday. So, looking forward to that!

Yesterday at the gym, they did my 1 month measurements and weigh in. I'm down 2.6 lbs and 10.5 inches. However, my body fat increased. I don't think that's right because I've been eating salad and veggie stir fry everyday and haven't even so much as had a fry or chip since January 2nd. Oh well, maybe next month it will be even better.

Back in Action

So we got back from the Oregon Coast Sunday, around half time of the Superbowl. Dave was able to see the kickoff and part of the first quarter at the Portland airport and then we finished watching it off the Tivo at home. I picked up the girls from Heather's Monday after work. They did great and had an amazing time. She of course had them all groomed up, exercised and even not barking. I really think Cesar's onto something with the exercise thing. I'm planning on taking them and Dave for a walk on the days that I don't workout.

So yesterday I went back to the doctor for a followup visit. Unfortunately, they show me UP 5 pounds from when I first started going there in November. So that wasn't good news. But she said to keep working out and it will eventually come off. I really thought working out would make the weight come off faster, but so far, it's seems to have the opposite effect. I'm showing a loss of 3.2 pounds since January, so I think I must have gained during the holidays. Big shock there.

So we had a wonderful time on vacation. We didn't do much, just hung out with Mike and Barbara and ate a lot of crab and did some reading, site seeing and lots of beach walks. It's amazing to me how far away you can feel when you're gone but how quickly when you come back it seems as though you never left.

We are hoping to take our next trip to AZ to visit them at their home in Green Valley. I've never been to AZ and my cousin Jennifer is going to the U of A, so maybe we can even see her if we go. It's nice to know Heather is willing to watch the doggies for us because we miss them terribly and worry about them when they're not with us. We've only left them twice and this time was much easier knowing they were with her and not at the doggie hotel.

I talked with Aaron last night, he's doing well. They are moving into a 2 bedroom apartment this weekend so that will be good for them both to have some of their own space. He is doing a fund raiser at school selling candy bars and had called me last week to ask me to buy some and he would ship it to me. I laughed and told him that 1) I didn't NEED candy bars since I was dieting and 2) it would really eat into his profits to ship it to me. So he's going to hang onto them there with his Dad and if there's any leftover when I get him in March, we'll take them to CA with us.

This weeks time consuming site is Change.org - it's a social networking site for good causes. Pretty cool. My friend Donna also just put me in touch with the Voices or Martyrs at Persecution.com where you can buy bags for $5 to fill with clothing and personal items and send that they send to people that need assistance. So I'm trying to figure out how many of what bags to send where to get and fill. How fun.

Blogging Unplugged

Saturday, February 3, 2007

This is our last full day at the Oregon coast. We are staying at a beautiful rental home owned by Dave’s Uncle Don in Yachats, OR. They even have their dog Jazz and cat Gigi here so I’ve been able to get my dog fix while I’m away from my puppies. If I walk on the beach I can get service on my phone but so far I haven’t hooked up the computer down there. When we drive into town, it also comes on. So far, doesn’t look like I’m missing anything interesting being unplugged. We’ve been spending lazy days with the slider open and hearing the ocean sounds while we eat fresh crab and homemade goodness. I even found Vitamin Water so I’ve been drinking that. I finished my book this morning and need to start another. We visited the library, which was surprisingly nice for such a small town.

We scored a Mustang for our rental car, so Dave’s been having some fun driving that around. I apparently left a long skid mark leaving the house’s driveway the one time I took it for a short spin. The cool thing is that it has an auxillary input and once we stopped at Target for the 3.5 mm male/male jack, I can listen to the ipod in the Mustang.

View all the pictures from the trip here.