Small Update

It's been a fun day spent with family and good food. An interesting way to get to know a new person is to play the game Would You Rather and listen to their response. One of my husband's cousin's introduced her boyfriends & thankfully he is a game player with good answers.

Hope everyone remembered to set their clock back last night. We did so there is no funny story about showing up anywhere an hour early!

RED

My husband and I got to have a date day of sorts. We started with a matinee movie with 1 free ticket & a free small popcorn. Who doesn't love free? We added 1 ticket & 1 large cherry coke to share.

We chose to go see RED with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker & Helen Mirren. All the way around a fantastic cast! it's an action comedy with lots of loud shooting & very little language. Honestly, its says its rated PG-13 for action violence & brief strong languages but neither my husband or i remember there being any language. Now, it could be stated that we watch R rated that are heavy in language and in comparison it just didn't register on our radar. Either way it's a very fun movie - not a constant laugh out loud but i chuckled a lot.

Cirque du Soleil

Yup, I want to go see Kooza the Cirque du Soleil show here in Portland. Its good timing, I can ask for it as a birthday present. If you want to watch a promo video: click.

The Weekend

The only thing i got crossed off my list is attending the bridal shower. I did go look for shoes but was unsuccessful. I've come to the conclusion that for heels i need wide instead of medium width shoes. I also found the 6 month out photos but didn't get editing them. At least i touched on 3 items on my list.

Back to work tomorrow... it feels like i just left on Friday, bummer.

Dreading the Weekend

I've been in denial about the horrible status of my house this week. This weekend something has to be done about it. I'm imagining hours of cleaning in a hot & smelly apartment. I don't know why but it seems i can never get the apartment to smell good. If its not some dog odor, it's a mystery smell in the kitchen, if it's not that it's a dead mouse in a closet.

Gonna see if i can find a good audio book from the library. Maybe if i distract my brain from all the mess i won't mind cleaning it. Or at least be able to clean it with out too much judgmental thought processes.

Two bright spots:
- Seeing Pixar's new movie "UP" with my MIL on Saturday
- Life Couching call Sunday morning

Maybe i can convince the husband to go out tonight, have dinner at a Sweet Tomatoes or something.

This Weekend

Today is the official day of spring but there isn't much happening in Portland to show it. The weather is a touch warmer, fine in a sweatshirt and a scarf but it's also raining. There are are plans for it to rain all weekend. The only other difference is the reappearance of birds that make fast high pitch chirping sounds in the mornings around sunrise (about 8am here). Still I'm getting that spring cleaning fever.

Cleaning plans:
- Kitchen, you won't believe how horribly dirty it is.
- Office, you'd probably believe how cluttered it is.
- Laundry, i have quarters.

General Creative Plans:
- Edit photos for 365 project

Other Plans:
- Lunch with a friend on Saturday
- Dinner with the church missions team to find out what their plans are and if/how/can we help in a way.
- Church on Sunday, we have a guest speaker so we'll be attending all 3 sessions.
{I don't really know how this sounds to anyone else but i don't enjoy going to church almost all day on Sundays. We've most recently started going to the sunday school in addition to the service. This takes all morning from 8am till 12:30pm i'm getting ready for church and then sitting through it. Then there is the evening service that starts at 6 and runs 1hr-1.5hrs. I struggle a little with the guilt that i'm being selfish that i don't want to go spend all that time fellowshiping with other Christans but uh, the truth is, i don't. By the time we get home from morning service, have lunch, take a nap and get up again to be productive it's about time to get to church again which interrupts the evening being productive. In addition i'm part of a Monday night woman's bible study which i actually find more helpful than most Sundays because it's more communicative and not lecture. So there you have it, i don't go to evening church services because i enjoy my Sunday evenings at home.}

How much of this list will get done this weekend? I'm really hoping a little bit of everything because it all really needs to get done.

Favorite Sound

The video quality looks awful but thankfully the point of it is the sound. There is a beach at the base of the cliff that Yaquina Head Lighthouse sits on. This beach is made up entirely of black rocks of all sizes. One of my favorite sounds is when the waves wash out over the rocks causing them to tumble over one another. Saturday {21st} the tide was high and the sound of the rocks was so loud! I'd guess because it was washing over the larger rocks and not just the small ones like it does at low tide.

Valentines

I for one relish the thought of romantic gifts of flowers, cards with words of devotion, and small gifts chosen with thought. I appreciate these things any day of the year. I do not appreciate trying to get out in the craziness that is the official day of love. We have no romantic plans this year.

Part of me wants to try a matinee showing of Coraline mostly because i didn't get to go see it opening weekend. I've heard rave reviews of it in 3D but here's the thing, usually wearing the special glasses don't work over normal glasses and then i end up with a headache by the end of it. In general the movie has received amazing glowing reviews so it could be one i'd try to see twice in theaters, the first being just a normal viewing.

The other thing that i'll be trying to complete this Valentines is curtains for the backdoor. We've had part of the fabric for a year and then purchased the second half of the needed fabric about six months ago. But the final motivation is that the dog ripped a whole in part of the current curtain and has bent the rod they hang from. So, we have a missing chunk of fabric and the rest of it dragging the floor. It looks AWFUL. This will be an interesting attempt considering i'm going to use heat set fabric glue instead of sewing. I would sew the straight lines that are needed for the hem but i don't have a machine. I wish i did though.

Is anyone making it as a 3 day weekend with Monday being President's Day? I'll be at work on Monday because my company is a little odd and we don't get holidays but in exchange we have 9 extra days of PTO. We can request holidays off as PTO but i chose not to because I'd rather save it for days i really want off.

What will you be doing this holiday?

It's Negative

The pregnancy test turned out to be negative - big sigh of relief. It does turn out that i have extra fluid in my inner ear. Since Monday i was struggling with dizziness when i'd lay down and then turn my head or get back up. It progressively got worse all week, by Friday i was slightly dizzy any time my head would move. Looking down really sends me for a loop. Called the nurse line and she recommended I seek treatment with in the next 6 hours. Off to the urgent care we went, turns out to be a very nice place and faster service with a lower bill then the ER. A pregnancy test had to be given before the Dr. could subscribe the meds she wanted to give to dry up the extra fluid. It seems that the inner ear is very important to balance and that any time the head moves the fluid moves and if there is too much it just keeps going once the head stops which causes a person to be dizzy.

Today is my first day on the meds. One side affect is slight drowsiness but thankfully it seems it's not going to be a big deal. Other then feeling lazy, which i think is a combo of meds and not wanting to move my head, I'm fine. Hopefully all will be normal after the week of meds.

I don't have any exciting plans. It's like i turn into a 70 year old woman on this holiday and go to bed at my normal time with out even so much as a glass of grape juice to clink "New Year" with.

I have fond memories of being small and celebrating with my family or my best friends family. The night always involved games, puzzles and good food. But now that the novelty of staying up past midnight has worn off, i don't see the big excitement about it. Plus I'm working tomorrow to cover for a snow day i took last week.

You have a good celebration!

Rumor

We're supposed to have a snowstorm this weekend. To the grocery store we go tonight! I'm hoping it happens. Being snowed in this weekend doing Christmas decorating and crafts sounds perfect.

We got our tree Saturday but then promptly got into a little tiff about how to rearrange the living room furniture. By the time everything was in a new place we were tired and left the tree bare. It's been smelling awesome and looking big in our living room all week. It's going to look great with lights.

World Tour

Finally, tonight, i get to buy Guitar Hero World Tour - which includes a guitar, drums, and microphone. I don't really care about the mic but everything else sounds great. I've heard great reviews from a few friends who have it.

But this is not what i'll be doing all weekend. Actually, i might not even get to play till Sunday night. We're going to the coast this weekend. Our goal is to leave the house by 9a, yeah, lol we'll see how well that goes. I'm actually really looking forward to it because we haven't been out to Newport in about 4 months. It'll be nice to visit with Grandma {in-law} too. We have plans to take her to see Madagascar 2 in the theater {it's been a while since she's been in the theater}.

I'm also hoping to squeeze in a little antique shopping as well. There are a number of place to go look.

My plan is to blog before we go but i'm not stressing about it since i already missed a day.

Top Things for this Weekend

1) Vote - in OR it's all done via mail or drop boxes for your ballots. There are several measures to be voted on that i have no idea about so, i'm going to sit down and open my voter guide to see what i can make of it. On a side note, i kinda wonder if Obama doesn't win how much foul play will be called.

2) Create my pages for the latest collaborative zine project i'm in. The theme is Positive - Negative {i totally know what i'm doing for Negative - Positive hmmm....}. This is due in the book creator's hand by the 7th.

3) Write a first draft of a Mission Statement for the art group that i'm in. It's needed for Tuesday's meeting. Yeah, i procrastinated a little.

4) Figure out what i still need for the Scavenger collaborative project. That needs to be post marked the 14th but i'd really like to ship it in time to be in their hands by the 14th.

These are all things that i feel like HAVE to be done this weekend. The list i made last week, yeah, i was right, i got 2 things done {moved the table, sorted through a small pile of mail} and then proceeded to be kicked in the butt by headaches and pity-parties. Neither of which I'm allowing this weekend.

***
I don't really celebrate Halloween. I don't like being scared or grossed out so it's not really the best holiday in my opinion. I don't pass out candy because we have dogs that bark when people come to the door and no backyard to banish them to - they'd get really annoying very quickly. I do like pumpkins, pumpkin carving, leaves changing colors... i'm thinking if the store still has them today i'm going to pick up a small assortments of gourds for my work desk. When i have children i'll take them trick-or-treating but until then, i'm staying home with the front porch light out.