Wicked Smart

My husband is finally back in town. Yea! I heart him.

Yesterday, my oldest sister Reggie and I brought our mom lunch and then had a little family meeting about everything that had gone down this week, what needed to be done going forward and also what was going on with our other sister medically. It was a conversation that needed to happen and luckily there was minimal fighting (most of the yelling was about politics as my dad is one of those pesky Republicans but what can you do?). Hopefully my mom and Kelly listen to what we said and it actually works and helps them out. At this point, none of us are quite sure how to procede, but it definately sucks ass to know we are finally at that point where the kids have to start being the adults (tear). Afterwards we dropped my car off at Reggie's house and we drove down to her friend Maria's house in Gig Harbor. Now, I know I tend to stay in my little Eastside bubble for the most part, so haven't been to Gig Harbor in years but HOLY CRAP that's far! Plus it was rainy out and...

I am crazy obsessed with this book (The Girl Who Played With Fire) and it's predecessor (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). In fact, I am so wrapped up in it that I not only read during my lunch break, causing minor neck cramping as I tried to keep the book open and close while eating soup and not spilling on myself, but actually cancelled plans with friends to go home and read it. I only stopped reading long enough to take a picture and write this post. I highly recommend them to anyone looking for something to read. The first one is kind of hard to get into but it reaches this point about 100 pages where it suddenly gets riveting and you can't put it down. I can't wait for the 3rd one to finally get published!

This is why sometimes it's cool to go to work.

My new kickass ice cube tray! Gin and Titonic, in the shape of the Titanic and iceburgs! I love 'em cause really what says entertainment like a major catastrophy which killed thousands of people, cost millions of dollars and changed the course of history forever?

Today was a very bad day. Quite possibly the worst day I've had in about 8 or 9 years, since the last time this happened, and I've had some pretty bad days. Today my mother was in the hospital. Well technically my dad took her to the ER last night, but she wasn't admitted until around 4 am. My mom is diabetic and has been since I was about 16 or 17. In the last year or so it's become harder for her to control it so her doctor recommended she be placed on the pump. While changing her vial of insulin on Sunday, something happened and she was not getting any insulin injections. As her blood sugars rose, she kept trying to have get insulin but was not getting any, which meant her blood sugars continued to rise rapidly. By the time my dad called me at 6:30 Monday night, her numbers were between 400 and 500 and had been there for almost 12 hours. I told him to have her drink water but really he needed to take her to the hospital immeadiately. He had called the doctor, so...

The lighting fixture from the comfy postion on the couch I was stuck in. Also known as "the height of lazy."

This afternoon I was unloading groceries from my car when I noticed this spot on my passenger seat. It made me laugh as I thought about how it got there, the day I set my car on fire. Picture it: Bellevue, June 2008. I was moving the last of my items over to my new place and had put all of the items from the bathroom in a box and set them in the front seat. I continued loading random items into the car and it was on the last trip out that I noticed the entire cabin filled with smoke. I was trying to figure out how exactly something caught on fire when I remembered the can of hairspray in the box on the front seat. I didn't really feel like it was hot enough outside to have the aerosole can combust but as there was nothing but smoke in the car, obviously I was wrong. So I carefully opened the passenger door to try and figure out a way to put out the fire when I got a whiff of the unmistakable smell of aerosol. And then I realized the car was not filled with smoke, but instead ...

Yea! I got my new comforter set on Friday and got it onto my bed on Saturday. It actually is very warm (or I was just really tired last night.) Either way, I'm happy with it. And even better cause with my gift card to Amazon I only had to pay an additional $20!

Today was my birthday 2.0. I had invited some friends out to the Matador in Redmond for drinks and food and to celebrate me and my general awesomeness during this, my birthday week. To show them I really did care, and butter them up for better presents and free dinner/drinks I made a mix cd for everyone as a party favor of sorts. But first, I had to make it through the day. I threw on my party cd and was ever so busy working when Shannon walked into Gloria's office for a meeting, leaving me to answer the phones. Now, I normally have a hard time answering the phones as I forget what time of day it is so am not sure if I should say "good morning" or "good afternoon" so there is generally a miniscule pause while I work it out. Today, however, I had a bit longer of a pause. In fact, it was long enough I completely forgot what I was doing and why I was holding this handset at my ear. I realized I needed to say something, but what? So I looked and listened for a...

-- Linda and I used to send each other random free crap at work. For example, I sent her a poster of Jet Li promoting stop smoking and a free birdwatching kit and she sent me lubricant and a prayer cloth. Now that she is no longer there, I have started sending random free crap to Shannon. Unfortunately the most awesome thing I have ever sent her has yet to show up so I cannot tell what it is (tear). Last year I sent her a sample of men's deoderant which was pretty awesome as well. It was the most foul smelling deoderant too, so it wasn't even like she could give it to Tim to use, making it even funnier. Today she sends me this picture on my phone of a sampler pack of men's deoderant sent to her attention at her house. I am fairly certain I didn't send it, but honestly at this point, who knows?

Today, Amanda was laid off. We knew it was coming, it wasn't a suprise, however, it is still very sad..or mucho grande sad-o in her native Mexican. After she left I had a hard time being all alone in the fishbowl so we came up with the idea to pull the life-sized cardboard cutouts from the open house out and put them in there so it would at least give the impression I had friends. If anything I will just create imaginary co-workers to entertain me on the days Carrie works from home. I decided I am going to name the co-workers Gretel and Jane.

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday Cause I'm Awesome, Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeeeee! So yesterday was my birthday, in case that lovely diddy didn't give it away. I was going to post a picture of the State Radio concert I attended at the Showbox last night however I completely forgot my camera. I did take a couple of crappy pictures from my phone and have uploaded them to my pix folder online, and they say you can dl the pic straight to your blogger account but it didn't work for me last night and so I have given up for now. Perhaps when I figure it out I'll put them up. Anyways. So I had a great birthday. I got a free bagel for breakfast (thanks to Carrie and "Donut Day" at work) and then for lunch, Carrie, Amanda and I went back to our old stompin grounds to get Wibbleys and tiny tacos from the tiny taco place. The tiny tacos were not very good though, they added some weird sauce and the yummy onion they give you is now like a pea...

Cheryl took me out to Chinese (and far far away from my diet and planned dinner of salmon and salad) tonight for an early birthday dinner. I noticed the lunch buffet menu on the back and it made me laugh that your choices were either one time through or "All Time Through". And really, for $.35 more why would you not go all time through?

I'm just like those rednecks down South! haha. I don't really get how a giant gold big foot is an effective Valentines Day marketing campaign but it's apparently the direction Albertsons is going in this year.

Saturday night I attended Shannon's birthday party. After a yummy Spaghetti dinner we settled into the living room and started playing a game her friend had brought. Basically, a card is drawn with a topic such as things that are embarrassing and then everyone writes down an answer and puts it into a hat. Then you go around the room trying to guess who said what. It was actually a lot of fun. The best part wasn't so much the answers themselves (even though there were a lot of great answers, like the round where there were not one, not two, but three freight trains) but how people would go around the room asking who said what. "Are you giving your girlfriend an STD?" "Are you picking your nose?" And of course, making the judge of the round repeat the answers every time it was someone new's turn to guess, was awesome. I wondered how many times we could make Nelson say "my dick." Anyways, happy birthday Shannon! Enjoy that last year of youth!

Pain. That's all there is- pain. I went shopping today on my lunch break and only had about 15 minutes left as I headed back to the office so I stopped at this teriyaki place by Trader Joes. I walked in and I was the only girl in there, besides the one behind the counter. Every table was filled with construction workers watching the television and talking about Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien (P.S. Jay- seriously? you retired from late night. That means you go home and spend some of that $800 million you have in the bank and let Conan find his groove.)I go up to the counter and ask for spicy chicken teriyaki. The girl asks how many stars, 1-3. As I'm used to up to 4 stars I'm thinking yeah right, it's not going to be very spicy..whatever. So I order 3 stars. Oh. Dear. Lord. I had no idea her English was so poor. She said 3 stars instead of what she truely meant to say which was "3-If-Chuck-Norris-And-Mr.-T-Had-A-Baby-And-It-Was-Hit-By-An-Astroid-Thereby-Becom...

Amanda's and my friendship is definately based on randomness. We crack up over the stupidest things and are unafraid to be completely lame (read: someone's Roger and Hammerstein collection), dorky (read: David Hasselhoff on a stick) and/or (most of the time all 3) drunk (read: Mak!) around each other. We realized today that our IM conversation was completely random and most of the time we were carrying on multiple conversations at the same time, and were able to never skip a beat. Here are my favorite Amanda lines of the day: "Yet it is Yetis." (I do feel the need to explain this was in response to an article I sent her proving once and for all that plural Bigfoot is NOT Bigfeet.) "Note the joy." "Grr fucking grrrr." "He'll be wearing spiritual Pisces in a matter of days." (Okay this wasn't her, this was her sending me her horoscope of the day. Neither of us knew what it meant but I thought it was mighty brave as Pisces always m...

I heart these. Why do things that taste so good have to be so bad for you?

This lovely contraption is...well I honestly have no idea what it is. What I do know is that it sits just a couple of feet from my front door and although usually unobtrusive and quiet, has decided to go through what I'm calling it's Lindsay Lohan phase and freak the fuck out. I came home for lunch on Monday and noticed the yellow light was flashing and it was making this horrible beeping noise every couple of seconds. I saw that the light indicated "system trouble" but figured maintainence would come by and see and fix it, or at least, someone who actually owned a condo in this building would have a number and call someone to take care of it so I went back to work without a second thought. This is why it doesn't pay to be lazy. I got home that night to a pitch black building and carport. I made the mistake of not getting my house key ready so go to the door and spent several minutes trying to figure out how to open my own front door! And the beeping noise con...

Banana bread made with hard boiled egg instead of regular egg is G.R.O.S.S. 1. It doesn't raise. 2. It doesn't really set. 3. It doesn't cook all the way through. 4. It has little flecks of hard boiled egg in it, no matter how much you try to mash it up.

So Roommate Cheryl (her official name btw) is making lumpia for her office tomorrow, one person in particular, he he. For those of you that don't know, lumpia is a Filipino egg roll, traditionally made with pork and vegetables. She makes her with beef (because it's cheaper) and turkey (for her Hindu friends who can't eat the Moo). They are so good and unbelievably addictive, I'm so excited! BUT they are very time consuming to make and she has been at it for 2.5 hours and still hasn't even wrapped them yet. She is going to fry some tonight for us, along with putting them in the freezer, unlike the stupid Chicken Adobo she made last night for her work people and didn't even leave me, her adorable, super fantastic roommate any!

So I've been slacking this weekend and haven't bothered to post Friday or Saturday, BUT I was able to take photos so can post them all now. Lucky you readers! Just joking, but as I am not feeling very good today (If I get strep I'm hunting Adrianne down and kicking her ass) you are lucky as there isn't much to be said about them. Friday's Garbage Can. I think this was actually meant to be a recycling can but it still made me laugh to see a No Garbage sign on a garbage dumpster. I took this photo from my deck Saturday night while avoiding getting ready for the work holiday party. Sometimes I love the view from my deck, especially when the sky looks like that over the trees. This is what happens when you make banana bread with the only kind of egg you have on hand, a hard boiled one. haha. I had boiled the last two eggs for salads and started making banana bread without even thinking about needing eggs. As soon as I got to the part of the recipe that said "1...

Side blog sans photo. I just realized my blog looks like the set of Larry King Live. Side note of my side blog: Did you know that the mics on the desk are just props and they use lapel mics?

So earlier today I exchanged belated Secret Santa presents with Carrie. I gave her an idea book that's the "ideal size" (haha) and she gave me a snuggie. I was certain that would make picture of the day as the snuggie is really one of the funniest aspects of our current culture, however, she was sadly out-gifted by my friend Bethany tonight over dinner. Last month Victoria's Secret ran a sale, buy 3 sweaters for $30 and also get a free scarf. I personally didn't want to buy 3 sweaters and I don't usually buy clothing as gifts for people as it's too hard to size correctly so I made it my priority that day to find someone to buy sweaters and give me the free scarf. I even tried convincing the guys at work to buy sweaters for their wives, but sadly noone would take the bait and I remained scarf-less. (tear) Well in my box of spice jars from Anthropologie (awesome present, however did she know?) was this weird red mess in a bag. I pulled it out and was li...

So I am three days into my experiment and I already forgot to look for something to take a picture of. Oops. It is much harder than one would think to find something interesting to take a photo of when you literally do the same thing day in and day out. So today at 9:30pm I snapped a picture of my new scale which I just got tonight. It is only "interesting" (and I'm using that word VERY liberally)because of the problems it gave me. I had a $10 off coupon and Freddies was running a sale on it for $9.98...so free scale, yippee! Not so fast Coupon Jack. Of course as it's Wednesday, they were completely out of the $9.98 sale scales so I could either ask for a rain check or pick up a higher priced scale that was still on sale but no longer free. I went with option 2. So I go through self checkout and the girl rings my coupons and I'm thinking, that can't be right but she swears she rang them all so I pay and go out to the car where I go back through and see ...

Port-a-potty. So after work today I went over to my friend Amanda's house where we made Mongolian Grill, Dos Amigas stylie. I have been to Amanda's house plenty of times and everytime (with the GREAT exception of the Kujo Bunny incident) has been fairly routine. Today, however, when I arrived I noticed a port-a-potty and cherry picker parked in her driveway. How she could forget to tell me she needed a portable place to crap and easy accessibility to cherries, I just don't get. I don't think I'll ever get it. But hey, if she eats too many cherries, she doesn't have far to go...

Tiny Oranges. One of my personal obsessions during the Christmas season, these Cuties hold a particular fondness for me after getting drunk and yelling out "Say hello to my little Orange!" prompting a full on Scarface craze.

So here's the deal. While watching Julie and Julia the other day I realized how cool the idea of doing something every day for a year actually is. I have always been a fan of the idea of taking a photo of your family on the same date every year, starting with the couple dating and going through kids, grandkids, bad haircuts, the whole shebang. But as there is a serious shortage of eligible, decent men in the Puget Sound, I am starting my own project. I am not sure what to call it yet, maybe that will come to me eventually, but for now, it will be referred to as the 2010 Project. It is my plan to take a photo every day and blog it. I can't guarentee I will be able to acomplish this every day through January 3, 2011, but I will try. Hopefully I am at least able to take the photo and post several at once, if need be. Now, you might be wondering what kind of photo I will be posting. Mind you, I'm not a great photographer, I don't own a high quality camera. I don...