In Texas

I'm currently in Houston, staying with my 2 college roommates before we head out to San Antonio today. We have a weekend full of college reunion events on the schedule, so my posts will be sporadic or non-existent for the next week. The weather is amazing here (mid-70's!) so I'm soaking it all up. Happy Friday everyone!

V-8 kitty

Cats are so odd! Pepper loves tiny little spaces and couldn't wait to crawl in here. She hunkered down while I wrapped the plastic around her.

Then the dog walked by and he got quite the shock as a cat paw came out of nowhere to whack his legs.

Moose-o-rama

Yesterday I drove by the area where D parks his truck at work (he is currently doing some work at my workplace -- we're remodeling) and out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement...

There were actually a total of 3 moose - mama and 2 calves -- but the other calf was already ahead of these two. They really seem to like this area.

Life of leisure

A girl could really get used to this kind of schedule -- work 3 days, have two off. Work one day and then have 7 days off! This is my last day in the office until next Thursday the 12th. I'm still trying to use up vacation time and then on Wednesday night I fly out to Texas to meet up with my college roommates for our 10-year Trinity University reunion. Alumni weekend is a pretty big deal for our school so we're looking forward to seeing old friends and stuffing our faces with authentic Tex-Mex and margaritas!

Haunted Ship

How fun with this be...a haunted house created on board a ship!

"Haunted Hickory" a Coast Guard Fright in Homer via the Anchorage Daily News

This cutter (the Hickory) is usually docked in the harbor everytime we take the boat out of Homer for a weekend. Here it is back in August (this is the weekend we spent in Homer right after we got engaged).

The white stuff

First snow! First snow! When I let the dog out this morning I noticed light, fluffy flakes coming down. It's not going to stick around because the weather is too warm (low 40's) but the termination dust on the Chugach Range is here to stay. D and I had a bet about the first snowfall -- which I LOST! Thanks for nothing, snow. One freaking day late -- now I have to make caribou lasagna.

My boss is making me take the next two days off because of my copious amount of overtime this month. It will be a good opportunity for me to do things like buy food, clean the house and finally get started on altering my wedding dress. I don't know why I've been putting that off, but it's probably because I'm worried about having someone working on it and accidentally messing up this beautiful dress that my mom wore on her wedding day.

Accident

I just found out that my sister had to visit the ER this weekend. She was biking with her boyfriend when a car pulled out in front of her and caused her to crash her bike. The vehicle may or may not have seen her as she fell, but it sped off regardless. Her jaw might be broken but other than being banged up she is in one piece, thank goodness. Please send good, healing vibes her way and wishes for a speedy recovery.

This is a reminder to all of us that cars are not the only entities on the roadway and in intersections. We need to be on the lookout for bikes, motorcycles and pedestrians at all times.

Friday update

This morning when I parked my car in the lot at work and opened the door, a huge BANG went off and I was just about ready to duck and cover, ninja style! After a moment, a big flock of Canada geese went flying off into the distance and I realized that the small plane airport (which borders my workplace) was herding the birds off the runway so they wouldn't cause any major accidents. I guess a "shoo, bird!" doesn't really cut it with 50-100 geese.

My last health fair of the season is tomorrow (woot!) so I'll be working late today. This is so random, but when I get stressed out my eyelid usually twitches, but this week it's been my lip and the muscle near my nose. I don't think it's noticeable because no one has mentioned it to me and it's not like my face is constantly twitching 24/7, but I still feel a little weird about it.

As we speak my sister is out running wedding errands for me -- in California, no less! She's picking up table linens and napkins for the reception. Thanks Risha!

Poufs and pompoms

I went to girls' craft night yesterday, hosted by my friend Cindy at her home. I didn't have any pressing projects to work on but decided to practice making paper poufs and pompoms for the wedding. Not sure where these will go, but I love that they can be created in any size and then suspended from the ceiling or made into garland to string across the room or placed on the table.

I forgot to take a photo of mine, but here are Martha Stewart's:

I know that people have had questions regarding accomodations during the wedding -- everyone is really being proactive, I love that! Our wedding website is super close to being finished (I'm creating it from scratch in my non-existent spare time, so bear with me!) and it contains a lot of suggestions for lodging, things to do and what to bring. I'm working with three hotels in Seward for discount blocks of rooms: Seward Windsong Lodge, Breeze Inn and the Seward Harbor Holiday Inn Express. Plus there are options to camp or rent a motorhome or reserve a cabin for the weekend.

If you want to get a head start on booking a room or cabin, email me or leave a comment -- I'll forward some of those links!

Puppy love

Our nice neighbors to the south of us have a gray weimaraner and they sometimes bring him over to play in our backyard with Drift. Oh man, the puppies have so much fun! It's a pretty constant "you chase me, no I'll chase you!" circus back there, with some biting and lots of jumping thrown in for the good measure. I think Drift is at least 3-4 years older than Clyde, so our dog gets tired a lot sooner than theirs.

I'm spoiled for all other dogs now; Drift is so happy, sweet and mellow, and overall a very good dog. Clyde is great but that dog has jumped up on me I don't know how many times and almost bitten my ear off by accident. Discipline is not the name of the game next door, apparently. But the dogs have fun together and it's good exercise.

Here they are wanting to come in - Drift just stood patiently while Clyde went crazy clawing at the sliding door!

Triple the fun

No health fairs this weekend, but it was busy nonetheless. A going-away party for a coworker on Friday night, then a birthday party for another friend on Saturday night. But for about 5 hours on Saturday afternoon, I had the opportunity to help babysit TRIPLETS! A friend of a friend gave birth to triplets (2 girls, 1 boy) about 5 months ago and three of us went over to give the harried parents a baby-free afternoon off. My friend's 2-year old son also came over to play with the triplets' 2-year old -- so we had five kids total to watch.

It was crazy busy all afternoon. The babies were in good moods for about 30 minutes after the parents left, then they got fussy. Usually two would cry and one would be fine -- then they'd trade off. The baby boy is the smallest of the bunch, but man can he spit up! He's a champion, that one -- I was sporting spit-up all over my shirt. I now recognize the importance of a rag on your person at all times.

After a big meltdown before feeding time we let the babies nap for a bit and then took them for a short walk outside since the day was gorgeous. Oh they looked SO adorable bundled up in the fleece jumpers! I got my girl in a sling contraption and she fell right asleep. We got the 2-year old boys dressed and situated in the double stroller and took a nice 30 minute jaunt around the neighborhood. Another friend who had a baby boy about 2 months ago stopped by and also walked with us. Such a lovely day.

Oh and we found out later that we had been calling the girls by the incorrect names all afternoon! They totally look alike but the parents are not sure if the three are truly identical. I guess there is some test the babies can take but they haven't gotten around to it yet. I definitely came home with a touch of baby fever!

Weather and weddings

Usually by this time of year I would have photos of snow on the ground or tales of woe about the cold temperatures, but the wacky weather has brought us mid-50 degree temps and rain. I'm not complaining because we'll have plenty of time to play in the snow as the season progresses. I don't think we've even had a really hard frost yet, and some of my container plants and flowers are still alive! Honestly I can't remember ever having Halloween without cold weather and snow.

If I can get my act together, Save-the-Date reminders for the wedding will go out soon. That means I need to work on the guest list, ugh. We're also putting together a website with pertinent details for guests: travel info, accommodation recommendations, things to do, etc.

We met with a photographer on Monday -- um, love him and his team's work. Joe answered all of our questions and eased my many fears (e.g. what if the equipment konks out or a memory card is lost?) Our photographer (Karen) is currently in Antarctica but will be back in the spring. My big question was, what if she gets sick? And basically, unless Karen is dead, she'll be there -- you don't bail out on a bride on her wedding day. Alrighty then!

Getting to know you

A blog that I often frequent asked the question, "what chore don’t you trust the other person to do?" That got me thinking -- and I think I would rather not have D do the laundry. Or more specifically, any laundry other than his own clothing. And there is a specific way of loading the dishwasher that I like.

D would probably prefer that I not tackle any home projects having to do with specific measurements or level surfaces. I got all the way up to calculus in high school but for some reason practical measurements are not my forte'. And I like to eyeball stuff that should really be done with the use of a level. All of this is a living nightmare for a carpenter, I'm sure!

Currently enamored with...

The "all things loved in September/October" list:

1. A wonderful fiancee': D works so very hard and is being a real trooper with all of this wedding craziness. I think he's learning that these events don't plan themselves...

2. Our new sleigh bed: a friend from work/book club is moving down to the Carolinas (boo!) but is selling most of her furniture, so I snatched up her dark wood queen sleigh bed (yay!). Since a small part of it was sanded down and still needs to be stained, we got the whole shebang (headboard, footboard, rails, supports) for a steal - $125! I think D even likes it. It's nice to have an adult bed after living with such a plain setup for so long.

3. My CHI hair straightener: um, if your sister ended up with the beautiful straight Korean hair and you got the weird half straight/half wavy mop, then you need a CHI. They're a bit more expensive than ones from the the drugstore, but totally worth it. I got mine on supersale from a salon and it seriously takes me only 10 minutes to flat iron my hair stick-straight. With a $30 iron it would be at least 20-30 minutes and my hair still wouldn't look right.

Monday update

Sorry for the sparse posting lately. I've worked the last two Saturdays (health fairs) so these have been 6-day weeks and I'm busy busy busy. And tired. This weekend is a free one but I am scheduled again on the 24th. I'm a bit burned out on work at this point.

I just realized that I have over 100 hours of vacation saved up in my PTO bank and can only carry over 40 hours to 2010 -- so somebody needs to take a bunch of time off before the end of the year! Sometime in the last few months I hit the magic mark and bumped up my vacation accrual rate from 7.54 hours earned per month to 15.08 hours/month, which is super fabulous but troublesome at the end of the year when we're busy and I don't have room in the schedule to take the time off. Gotta make time for it!