Monday, June 23, 2014

So Much Has Happened

I looked over my pictures and although I thought I was pretty well caught up I’m afraid that I still have a lot to tell. (This is kind of long, so you might want to go to the bathroom before you get started here, just saying)

For example, Grampa and I went gravespotting again.

First we went to the Multnomah Club to have delicious lunch, and to hand off the medals from Grampa Ainslie to the archivist, George Vogt.

Seems Grampa Ainslie was quite the handball player and his team won some world championship, and he won first place in singles.

IMG_2339

Then we went back to the cemetery to discuss future residence there.

 IMG_2344 IMG_2346

This is George Ainslie, Grampa Ainslie’s dad.

IMG_2351 IMG_2352

This is Ward Stevens. No idea. But he was born a long time ago in 1840. He’s a neighbor up there.

 IMG_2349

Nina asked me to make her some purses for Rosie’s friends for graduation presents so I made these

IMG_2360

Aren’t they cute, and they each have their little babies with them.

IMG_2364

Zippers and all.

Rosie graduated on the 13th.

IMG_2385IMG_2378

Yay. Here’s photographic proof of diploma receipt-

 IMG_2495

IMG_2499

I had a race the following day-the Sound to Narrows-

I took second place in my age group and I was VERY surprised.

 2014-06-22 21_46_25-ChronoTrack Live __ Roman Meal Sound to Narrows

I know, right?

IMG_0617

This kid beat me. Seriously. 

IMG_0618

Illegal parking at race.

I flaunt the law.

 IMG_0614

I didn’t stay to get my prize on account of I was sort of parked illegally. I worried about fires in the neighborhood and my car being the reason why they couldn’t be extinguished and spread throughout the municipality of the greater Tacoma area.

Not really. I had to go because Martha and I had to go to get our Yarn Crawl prizes and buy more yarn at Fancy Images Yarn. (We bought more yarn). (No one cares about fire when yarn’s at stake)

We also had lunch with Debbie AND went to a fabric store. I have no pictures though.

I looked at flowers last week, and stood this guy up. He’d been lying down all winter.

DSC00719

Is that St. Francis of Assisi? Maybe. Or not.

DSC00728

DSC00726

Father’s Day was in there and we went up to Edmonds. Supposed to take 58 minutes to go 50 miles. But it took us about, oh, twice that.

Why? Because Seattle. Doing time on I-5---no bail, no parole.

And this is the only picture. Jeesh. Don’t judge, I just spent a LOT of time on the I-5.

 DSC00734

I was down at Chamber’s Bay last week or so-nice clouds.

DSC00737

They gave me a cake last week because it was my last week in the office before the leaving to go to MN.

I told them-You know I’m not actually quitting-right? Seemed a little like a permanent good-bye. AND I am stopping by tomorrow (Monday 6/23) to pick up the name plate I forgot. I almost feel like I should sneak in so they don’t have to say good bye again. Jeesh.

DSC00738

My mug?

I finished a quilt too-Hard to see under all that dog…

IMG_0645

Finally, Saturday was the Rock n Roll, Seattle. Yay for us.

We walked. It was a big crowd-I think around 18,000.

Plus us-make that 18,005

It was a beautiful morning to go

IMG_0622

And check out the traffic….

IMG_0626

Here we are

Me, Tom, Martha, Julie and Dave. Not my Dave. He didn’t make it. Don’t even ask.

DSC00742

The bomb dog was there too.

DSC00745

Pre Race Selfies

IMG_0630 - Copy

The course was fabulous-I took so many pictures that to display  them would be like one of those bad vacation reels.

So highlights only-

Rainier Avenue

DSC00750

Giant Guy at the half way point.

IMG_0634

Elvis, bam, right there. With a megaphone.

IMG_0636

Lake Washington

DSC00752 

Seattle Skyline

DSC00754

Coming over the top-Sodo-where the magic happens.

IMG_0640

Waterfront

IMG_0641

And finish

IMG_0642

Yay for us!

IMG_0643

So, next week is the big move. Big move. Laura arrives on Tuesday so hold on to your hair. (As my sister said last week when we sped up to 30 on the hiway)

No good can come from my blog muse and I locked up in a car for 2.64 days. Or….can it?

Blog Muse-Machu Pichu

Sunday, June 15, 2014

All In A Day’s Work

It really is.

I can’t make this stuff up.

Like, when I drive up and park my car in the blessed, locked, covered parking garage, but can’t get out the door because of the homeless guy. Or girl. I couldn’t tell.

DSC00718 

That’s a person rolled up in there. It’s kind of sad, but still blogworthy for the fact it’s not unusual. Not. At. All.

(Remember this one in April ?, sleeping soundly at the back door)

IMG_0519

I send e-mails to Laura-like this

image001 - Copy

See that? Who knew I could be so productive.

We go out to lunch-

DSC00730 

and then out to dinner-

DSC00732 

For a cheese plate

DSC00731 

Occasionally I am actually working in the office.

Before-when you could see me working

DSC00130 

After, when they put up the wall so you couldn’t see me napping I wouldn’t be distracting by people walking by.

DSC00156

I wear socks with my sandals because, for about the first 10 months of being in our new building, the heat was broken. So our office sported this kind of look.

IMG_0327

We celebrate holidays-

DSC00359  

I decorate for other holidays

(There’s work going on in there, really)

DSC00424 

After all that, I go home, because keeping up this mad pace is exhausting. And this isn’t even the half of it.

It’s all in a day’s work.

Trust me.

 

Monday, June 9, 2014

Moving, part…..I lost count

So, for some of us this is the third move in a little over a year. Yep.

But done we are. We have vowed never to move again. Unless something happens in which we have to move. Like death.

So here’s how this move went down.

First Dave was living in a rental which I thought we were going to be living in for a while until we sold the house in Tacoma in one day and Dave couldn’t stand the rental any more. It was a little hoodish for Dave. I think fist bumping the neighbor put him over the edge.

But no matter, because just then we bought another house up in the Manor Park area of Rochester-minutes away from my besties, and we closed on May 30th.

Because, for some reason, my non presence was an issue at this signing, I flew back for the fun.

I got in and shuttled down to Rochester from Minneapolis on May 29th. Laura picked me up. She was waving a Melde sign from her vehicle, just like the real drivers. I felt like a rock star only I started laughing, thereby blowing my whole “well, would you expect anything less?” demeanor. But it was pretty hilarious.

Do you see why she’s my blog muse???

We got a key from Dave and then drove around a bit to find the rental I had never been to. And in the moments of driving around with neither of us giving direction but both us us assuming the other person knew what they were doing, we came to the realization that our cross country drive at the end of the month might take a wee bit longer than planned. Which is why God invented Garmin. And Apple phones, and maps. But God never took into account the Laura/Sarah effect of thinking we know better than any of these things.

That should be an interesting blog post.

Anyway, we made it to the rental and then we went to a fabulous good by party for Angie, who is leaving the county and moving on to a job with Mayo. Yay for her.

DSC00708

 

DSC00714

We met up with Nancy Pick-who was waiting for us (we were early and the first ones there-the above pictures are about 4 beers later)

DSC00711

There we are, Nancy, Laura and me. Yay. The Gruesome Threesome.

However, the addition of Dave makes it much more gruesome. (It’s ok, he never reads my blog. Really. He gets mad when I say I’m going to post something about him, but he doesn’t read it)

DSC00715

I saw other friends I haven’t seen in a while-

Lyndsey--

DSC00712

Kim B

DSC00713

And all the other people sitting around. Weather was great, evening super enjoyable. Loved it all.

I am posting lots of pictures of people at the party because after that, well, not so much.

We spent that night at the rental, took a few selfies, and then movers came the next AM.

IMG_0601

This is the least craziest of them all. We are tired. But the bird looks good.

Jack was up early looking for trouble-AND up in the sink looking for some water to splash on the floor. Or somewhere. Thanks Laura.

IMG_0603

I spent less than 24 hours in the rental. It wasn’t a bad rental. Smallish but not bad. Not great. Not bad. Oh wait. There was no A/C. That part was bad.

Movers came, movers left. Laura came and helped. The cats locked themselves in the bathroom. Well, we locked them in the bathroom first, then, in a fit of rage, they tried to break the door down (it was loud, I thought the movers were down there and they hadn’t even arrived yet). When that didn’t work they pulled out the drawer in the vanity and effectively locked themselves in. We could only open the door a few inches until it hit the drawer. Although it was a clever ploy, I’m not sure it was the effect they intended.

I did not take a picture of anything during that long day. Oh, and the other thing we did was go and buy the new house. Yeah, that happened.

I didn’t take a picture of Laura helping us, nor a picture of Cathy bringing us dinner. I was truly at the end of the line.

Because the next day the movers came back and drove us crazy, broke our shit, banged into the walls, and got grease on the carpet. For that they tried to charge us 500 over the estimate. Ha! We already had the furniture so what are they going to do-take it back?

IMG_2322

Go ahead, pack this back up. See if we care. (We successfully negotiated 1/2 of that back. And when I say we I mean Dave. I was pretty salty about the whole deal so maybe it was better he just accepted that 50% and let it go).

I have to say, when all was said and done I was so happy to have a great new house that I really really like. But the price one pays to get there-mind numbing.

We will never move again. I can’t say that enough.

Some crappy pictures I took of the house. What can I say? It’s hard to capture the ambiance. Unless you are into the moving carton style of decor. It lies somewhere between modern classic and retro hoarding.

IMG_0605

IMG_2318

IMG_0608

  IMG_2319 IMG_2323

IMG_0607

If this were a better picture, you could see that if you follow the sidewalk to the end, and look between the trees-that would be the Mayo clinic. Yep, the World Famous Mayo Clinic-WFMC. Or what I like to call the WTF Mayo Clinic. But they’ve been so very good to us I’ll have to tone down the sarcasm.

The pets are adjusting-except for Beta, which is a whole other story. And not a good one either. Let’s just say our downstairs carpet is screaming for mercy.

IMG_2313 IMG_2315 IMG_2320

See how few there are left? Beta needs a new dog because he is having a hard time adjusting to being himself. We just figured out that he doesn’t know how to ask to go out. Because he never had to. Which is a problem. But that’s for another blog. This is the moving blog.

We have a little room under the stairs with a mirror in it. No reason, just because. I had to squat to get in there. Jack feels really big. The power of being big is almost overwhelming. His body is feels big, unfortunately, his brain isn’t following suit.

IMG_2327

Did I mention Dave was along for the move too? Not the most flattering picture but I think it captures the ambiance. (ok, the more I look at this picture the worse it gets and the harder I laugh-I mean, whoa)

IMG_2316

And soon after this I packed up, got in the car, and came back to Tacoma. I lost my parking ticket in may wallet, and sat next to a one year old riding on a lap. I was due for a bad flight so I got it in spades. Even the flight attendants were extra nice to me when I was walking out. They said “Bye Bye” with real sympathy.

IMG_2330 The plane of doom.

And now I’m here, counting the days till I get back home.

IMG_2329