City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks...

So it’s been quite awhile since I posted so I figure it’s about time. Well one of the busiest times of the year is now behind us. This last weekend was Christmas and we’re now approaching a brand new year. I still can’t believe it’s almost 2007.

Well the last month was a crazy one. We ended up having a crazy mid-December windstorm that left most people in the area without power for awhile. I ended up losing power for about 4 days. My mom lost power for about a week. They said that this windstorm was the worst once since the Inaugural Day windstorm in 1993. I remember that windstorm. I was still in school, still living in Covington, and we lost power for over a week.

The first night without power wasn’t too bad, but the second day the temperature dropped significantly and I didn’t think I’d survive staying home another day. Fortunately, Nif and Jeff were kind enough to let me stay with them for a couple of days while my power was still out. I cannot tell you how nice it was to have heat, a warm shower, and not to have to try to see by candlelight. My bro actually only lost power for a couple of hours so my mom and Sun were able to stay with him while their power was out.

Once my power came back, I ended up trying to play catch up since Christmas was in less than a week. I think I barely slept all week. It was worth it though because I got all the things I wanted to do done. Yay!

I was able to see Gina while she was home for Christmas so that was nice. We were able to hang out and catch up. Things are going better for her now in N.Y. and I’m glad because she’s had a tough time out there since she moved. She’s living in a new place that is much bigger and she was saying there’s plenty of room if I wanted to visit. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to N.Y. so I’m thinking I may want to try to plan a trip.

Well Christmas Eve was a blur of activity for me. My mom needed me to run an errand for her because she wasn’t feeling well. Gina also called and was coming down to drop something off from her mom. On top of this, I still had to wrap all of the gifts for my family. This all had to be done before I headed off to Anna’s house to see the Cabatits for a little bit before heading to Nif’s so that we could head down to Puyallup to meet people and do a gift exchange. Luckily everything got done and I was able to go everywhere I planned on going. Yay! It was nice to be able to visit with and see so many people on Christmas Eve.

My brother and I did our usual spend the night at my mom’s Christmas Eve so we’re there in the morning to open presents. This year we all stayed up until like 5am so there was no early morning present opening for us even though my mom tried waking us early. We did our usual open presents and have brunch. We had banana macadamia nut pancakes. Yum! I brought the mix back from Hawaii. We had a nice lazy day and had Christmas Day dinner. It’s nice to go back to our old Christmas traditions to BD (before Dan) times.

I would have to say that this Christmas was definitely one of the best in a long time! Good times and good people! Oh and some nice gifts, too!

Christmas, Christmas Time is Near...

This has been quite the week! Monday we had a freak snow storm that came out of nowhere. Unfortunately it started during rush hour traffic so by the time I left work....it was a mess. It took me about 40 minutes to go the 2-3 blocks from my building to the freeway entrance. I knew then it was going to be a fun night. At one point my car did end up getting stuck in the snow up in the Renton Highlands. Fortunately for me, a couple of guys stopped there car to help push one lady and then me back on the road. I am thankful for the consideration of others in times like that!

The weather kept up on Tuesday and they actually closed both our Tacoma and Seattle offices for the day. Who knew I could still get a snow day when I'm not in school?! Well the snow only stayed with us for a couple of days and then it melted all away so life is back to normal.

On the workfront, my coworker and I decided to winterize our office. Our area now officially looks like a Winter Wonderland! Yay! I love this time of year! It literally looks like a snowy winter forest in some areas and a nutcracker parade in others. We were trying to make sure we didn't offend anyone with any religious decorations so we stuck to a general wintery theme. I think it all makes the atmosphere at work a little happier.

So I was toying with the idea of taking another trip around New Year's and my birthday. I was really going back and forth on it though. Then Brenna called to say she's coming up around New Year's. I took that as a sign I'm supposed to wait. I can always go somewhere when the weather warms up in the spring. I am so happy that Brenna is coming up for a visit though. I haven't seen her since I drove down to San Francisco to visit her in June. She's actually going to be checking things out up here and may decide to move back to Washington.

What else is going on? Oh...today I'm going shopping with my little brother. He called me to tell me he wanted to go shopping for things to donate to the Holiday Stocking for Homeless Children project that I'm involved with and Northwest Harvest food drive through my work. I thought that was so sweet that he wanted to help out. He's a pretty good kid!

Anyway...that's it for now. I can't believe it's the first weekend in December already! There's only like 3 weeks or so before Christmas!

28 Days Until Christmas...

This one is going to be a brief one...well brief for me anyway. Haha! This is the last week of November already. I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone by! Thanksgiving was last Thursday and as far as Thanksgivings go, it was pretty calm and peaceful this year. I love Thanksgivings when you can just hang out all day and just relax.

The rest of my weekend wasn’t as calm and had a fair share of ups and downs. Oh well! Cest la vie! Thank goodness Gina is around though because she helps keep me sane. Not sure what I’d do without her. Although she’s clear across the country now…she’s still a phone call, email, or message away. I love technology! Speaking of Gina… she’ll be home for Christmas in just a few weeks. Yay! I’m so excited to see her and am looking forward to just hanging out together. There’s never a dull moment when we’re together!

Oh and since we’re on the subject of Christmas time… the Stockings for the Homeless Children project is coming up fast. Nif and I will be doing it the weekend after this one. I still can’t believe it’s that soon! I always look forward to this project though because it’s such a wonderful cause and it always seems to give me hope for humanity and the future. It’s so amazing to watch all the people and the children that come to help out to give those children in the shelters a better Christmas. It’s sappy I know…but it gives me hope because I do believe the children are our future. Oh and speaking of the Stockings project…my donation box is filling up quite nicely. I added some pics above of my donation corner and donation boxes in case anyone was interested.

The other project I’ve been helping out with is the Northwest Harvest food drive through work. We’ve split up into teams at work and I’m proud to say that so far…my team has donated 475 items in the last couple of weeks. Not too shabby! We still have 2 more weeks, but I think we’re doing pretty good. One of the other teams only has 25 items.

Well…I think that’s all for now! Can you believe that it’s only 28 days until Christmas???!! Craziness!!!

You Don't Have to be Yogurt to get Cultured...

It's been awhile again since I posted. The time seems to have flown by! I know part of that was because I was sick in bed for days about a week or so ago. When you are in bed for almost a week...time seems to slip away from you. I can't believe it's the end of November already!

So what have I been up to? I've been keeping busy throwing myself into community service. It's that time of year again and everything goes on at the same time. I'm involved again this year with the Stockings for Homeless Children. Nif and I will be volunteering again on both days. This year I thought I'd try something different and set up a donation box at work. I have a pretty good size stash of stuff to bring when we volunteer. Oh and I've also been getting involved with the food drive for Northwest Harvest. This time of year always makes me feel a little guilty about my life when I think of all those unfortunate people who have so little when I have a lot of things I take for granted in my life. I think that is why I like volunteering so much. I feel like I am working towards a better future for all.

Other than work and volunteering... I've been attempting to be more cultured. Nif, Jeff, and I had talked about doing our International Cuisine dinners again so we went ahead and started that up again. So last weekend Nif, Jeff, Katt, David, and I ventured to Seattle in search of cultural experience. I was in charge of this last International Cuisine night. Yeah...that didn't turn out so well. I had researched Caribbean restaurants and found one called Calypso Kitchen that had great reviews. The only problem was that when we got to the address we had for the restaurant, it no longer seemed to exist. I'm thinking I should have checked the dates on those rave reviews! So we all became brave and tried out an Ethiopian place we found on Roosevelt in the U-District. It was so not what I imagined it would be like. For one, the food is pretty spicy which I didn't expect. The portions were huge which you can see in the above pic. Poor Nif's lips were burning at one point. Some of the things I felt were very flavorful. Unfortunately, the service was so slow! It was one of those places that is literally in someones house. I'm not sure that I'd go back, but I'm glad I got to experience that.

My other brush with being more cultured was dinner out the other night. I ended up having dinner with Jen and Laura at a Persian restaurant. Now before I went, I had no idea what kind of food Persian food was. We went to a place called Kolbeh in Seattle. The food was amazing and I really like the ambience of the place. I would absolutely go back there!

I've also gone to dim sum and chinese in the last week, but that's nothing new. Although we did try out a new dim sum restaurant which was in Factoria. It was called Top Gun and seemed popular as well as being very good.

Oh...Navan will be flying in tomorrow for a visit. My mom's condo is finally dry and we just need to worry about getting new carpet put in. My brother is still at Swedish and liking it. He's not liking the Seattle commute from the southend, but he's adjusting.

Well..I guess that's it for now.

Rain, rain go away...come again another day!

Well the rain has not let up in the last few days. We’ve even experienced minor flooding, road closures, and all that fun stuff. Another casualty to all this rain is my mom’s condo. It’s been raining so much the last few days that Sun came home from school today to find water all over the floor in most of the rooms in the condo. Unfortunately, my mom is on the bottom level and it’s one of those places where the bottom level is partially below the ground. Luckily, my brother got off work early today and was able to go out there and help out. After talking to the on-site manager, the condo association called in their emergency crew to take care of the water. I guess the ground water was actually seeping through the pads and the carpet of the condo. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure it’s not a pretty sight.

Other than the rain, the other highlights of the last week or so include: the end of Daylight Savings Time, Halloween, Nifer & Jeff’s Open House/Reception Event, and me learning to play poker.

As far as the Daylight Savings Time ending and Halloween…those are kind of self-explanatory. All that I really have to say about them is that they happened.

Nifer & Jeff’s Open House/Reception Event took place this last Saturday. That day was an especially wet one and there was even flooding nearby. There was lots of good food, good people, and good fun. There was even a fair share of excitement. Jeff’s 84 year-old great-uncle ended up slipping when he tried to round up Tubbs the “Speedy Gonzales” cat. I actually saw the entire thing. I was clear across the kitchen and was looking at the front door. I knew I was way too far away to do anything so I felt kind of helpless. It’s like when you see something that you know is going to happen and you feel like you’re in slow motion trying to get there. The paramedics were called and he was taken away to get stitches because he’d banged his head. Luckily he was okay though.

After the Open House, we played some poker. This was my very first official poker game. Fortunately, I had a poker mentoring session earlier that week with Nif. I still felt a little lost, but I know it would have been worse if I’d gone in without any mentoring. I learned that I’m not so good. I did still end up with 75 cents by the time I left so I was at least happy that I didn’t lose everything. I think I just need to learn things like the whole knowing when to hold them…knowing when to fold them…knowing when to walk away…etc, etc. That was my mini tribute to Kenny Rogers.

Later that night, I headed up to Laurie’s house for a mini party she was having. I got to see Teddy again while I was over there. It’s always kind of strange seeing Teddy now. There’s not any weirdness or anything between us… we get along fine. It just is so odd to me how we’re like friendly somewhat acquaintances when we used to be so close back in the day. That was a long time ago though. Back in the day when Pat and Mar still lived in the state…and Ms. Helen’s was still around.

There’s not all that much else going on right now. Oh! My brother got a new job. He’s working in the IT department at Swedish Hospital now. It’s cool because we can hang out after work if we want to now that he’s in the city. Yay!

Okay…I know I’ve said it before, but I can’t believe how soon Thanksgiving is!!! Holy heck! My mom and I are already starting to prep for that. Can you believe that? Plus, I need to start making lists and check out my Xmas stash so I can prep for that too. Where the heck did this year go?!

What happened?

I so haven't updated my blog in awhile. I'm such the slacker! I think this is why I can never keep a journal. Anyway....so the last couple weeks have been a complete blur. It seems like it's been forever since I got back from Maui, but I know it hasn't been that long. Let's see...what's been going on since I got back.

Well I finally had my graduation ceremony. It was weird since I graduated in April. Argosy is so weird though and only has one ceremony a year. It was at Benaroya Hall and was nice as ceremonies go. It was nice to see Michelle and some of my other school peeps. We were all able to receive congrats from our Program Chair during the ceremony which was cool since our Program Chair is now Doug who just happened to be one of our fave instructors. My family was there along with Heather, Joanna, and Godfrey so that was nice. There was a reception at the school, but we only went there for a little bit. We ended up going to Cactus over in Madison Park (which is one of my fave places in Seattle) for dinner. When we were finishing up with dinner I looked up and who should come in...Doug. I thought that was pretty funny. No matter where the man goes he can't get away from his students.

What else has been going on? Oh! Trina and David's greyhound Tigger went missing awhile back. Luckily, she had only made it as far as a few streets away and she's now safely back home. Yay! Oh ...Sarah and Greg bought their first house! I'm so happy for them! They've been wanting to buy a house for awhile now, but were having problems finding one in Seattle. Their house is like a brand new one and has that new house smell. Okay...so I don't know if that's a real smell, but that's what the house smells like. The house is really nice and somewhow seems very them. They are near I-90 now so they are much closer to me now. Yay!

On the work front...when I got back last Monday I found out that Mike was leaving and got a new job down in Marketing. You know...I was just getting used to Bryan being gone since he left the company just before I went to Maui. I'm happy for Mike, but I feel a little sad. Yeah he's crazy to work with, but he's such a nice guy and he is the one who trained me back when I started in the department.

Oh my mom went in for a CT scan yesterday. She's been having some problems and the doctors haven't been able to figure it out. We're just waiting on the results and hoping it's nothing too serious. She has seriously not had a good last few years healthwise.

I know I'm jumping around...but I can't believe Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Navan called a few days ago and said he's flying up for Thanksgiving. I think Thanksgiving will be a lot different this year. No Dan this year. It will be nice because Thanksgivings with him were always so miserable and/or tense.

Okay...so I think I've done enough rambling for one day!

Almost paradise...

Okay so... I recently returned from my trip to Maui for Nifer & Jeff's wedding. How was paradise you ask? Well the trip was more eventful than I had thought it would be.

The first few days in Maui were wonderful! Beautiful beaches, warm temperature, lots of sunshine, relaxation, and endless things to do. Mar even flew over from the Big Island so that we could spend some time together. Which made the trip even better. The day of the wedding we heard word that there might be a storm brewing and heading our way. Fortunately, there was only some slight overcast skies which actually helped us all not to melt from the heat. The wedding went smoothly and the whole day was great. Later that night, Mar & I made some plans for the next day not knowing what was ahead.

Sunday morning at around 7:08AM, I woke up to feel the bed shaking underneath me. I looked around and everything around me was shaking. I listened for sounds and only heard silence. No sounds from the birds which I learned is never a good sign on the island. Finally, the shaking stopped. I jumped from bed and pulled the door open and called to Mar asking him what was going on. He sat up and looked at me and said "Earthquake!" Just as he was saying that... shaking began for the 2nd time. After the shaking stopped this time, we both walked to my front window and pulled the drapes open to look at the ocean. We were both thinking the same thing... tsunami? At this point I seriously was cursing the fact that I had selected an ocean front condo and that I was on the 1st floor.

We tried to get some more info, but realized that all the power was out. Mar called around to people he knew on the island and on his island. I ended up calling Gina to see if she was near the internet to give us more info. A big thank you to all of Mar's buddies and Gina for their help in getting us info and keeping us updated! We found out that there had been 3 earthquakes and like 14 aftershocks that stemmed from the area around Kona on the Big Island. The quake that woke us was a 6.6 magnitude.

Anyway, Mar & I ventured out to go to breakfast to get our minds of things. Unfortunately, we realized there was no power anywhere. We headed to the one place we knew might have generators... the grocery store. That was a sight to behold! The store was dark, but the registers were on back-up generators. I swear half the town was in there and buying anything and everything like it was the end of the world. We ended up going back to the condo to see if power was back. We then heard on the radio that the entire island had no power and the power was pretty much out on ALL the islands. Poor Mar had a flight out that day. He had to wait about 7 hours before his flight actually left Maui and then had a few hours in Honolulu which had no power and storms that day.

We luckily got power back in Maui later in the day and were able to go to a nice bday dinner for David at Stella Blues. So the day may have ended up a little shaky (pardon the pun)... but ended up okay.

Monday morning, I woke up to the silence again. Then I realize that I'm hearing heavy, heavy rain. I turn on the tv and there is a flash flood warning in effect for Maui. I start thinking....boy this trip keeps getting better and better! Well to sum up the day... we had major constant rainfall all day. There was some rockslides, mudslides, flooding, etc. as a result of the rain and the earthquake from the day before. They even closed the road to the airport. I went where I could and tried to do things that weren't impacted by the weather. Luckily, the weather finally let up in the evening.

So Tuesday morning I wasn't sure what to expect. It was the day I was leaving. Guess what? Sunny skies and warm weather and no signs that the last few days had happened. Go figure! At least I got to enjoy some sunshine on my last day.

After a long hiatus...

Okay so it's been awhile since I've posted on here. To be honest...I actually forgot I even started this blog. What's worse is that I discovered a few days ago that there were like 3-4 other similar online journals, diaries, etc that I'd started at various times and had forgotten about. So in case you couldn't guess it...I have a short attention span and some of my memory is not so good.

So what is the point of all my rambling you ask? Well it was simply to explain the mega long hiatus and to explain that I have decided to try this again.

Well let's see...where should I start? I guess anywhere since it's been way too long anyway to pick up where I left off. Recently, I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life and where I'm going. For the last few months I've felt sort of trapped and that my life had become stagnant. I started to think that maybe it was just me and this is how everyone else felt. Kind of a depressing thought huh?

Anyway...I hung out with my friend Jen the other night and we had a really long discussion about life and the future. Well I guess that Jen had been feeling like I did and that her life had become stagnant. We both realized that part of it was the fact that we both had graduated and were now in limbo. I guess when you're going to school you feel like your life is moving forward and you're working towards a more positive future. Now there are so many more questions. Where do I go from here? What path should I choose?

One of my instructors once told me that the more I learned...the more I would realize how little I knew. I really think he was right. I thought that once I got my degree I'd have all the answers for myself. I realize just how wrong I was about that. It seems now that the world is full of so many more possibilities and I just don't know which way to go.

The good thing that came out of my discussion with Jen is that we both kind of felt like we inspired eachother. I think I am determined to make some definite decisions about my life when I get back from my trip to Maui. So I guess we'll see what happens!

Ciao for now!