Doin’ it better than me…..almost.

So, first of all, Blane’s 27th birthday on the 17th.

 

This makes me officially old. Because, after all, it is all about me. Plus that’s not any cake, that’s a Daube’s cake. Oh yeah.

Earlier in the day we had another Daube’s cake at work, because it was Cathy’s birthday. (It was also Jules birthday, and my former boss Sue, and Lynette in the office-it was a crazy amount of birthdays which makes me wonder about the 9 months previous to this date-Valentine’s Day? Puhleese.)

That all happened.

So I thought I’d blog it, but then I got to reading the Blogess and I was seriously feeling bad about my own blog. Even one of my co workers, who does not blog and should not throw stones, or whatever is appropriate for dissing a blog when you don’t write one, said my blog was a dull retelling of my boring life. Really.

So the Blogess was getting me down, down, down. I mean, the woman is hilarious and she has a cat named Ferris Mewler. Ferris Mewler-She originally chose the name Bob Barker, which is about as good as Ferris Mewler. I have Cat. Which I spell in the French Chat so my obvious inability to name animals isn’t so obvious. Not only that, but this lack of talent in naming is apparently generational since Blane’s cat is named Good Kitten.

And not only is the cat named Ferris Mewler, it has 5 toes on each foot. It has EXTRA freaking toes.

Here’s our list

No tail

No eye

No brain

(Yes he’s in the bathtub and no, he doesn’t know why)

And I am sure Ferris does not stalk the dog toys, that the dogs refuse to sniff, retrieve, or even carry around to simulate normal dog activity.

Then I started reading the links to other blogs off of the Blogess’s site and I was even more down about my pathetic attempts at entertaining myself in an online forum.

But then I realized I have one thing, the one thing, that no other blog will ever have..

**

My ever faithful and steady blog muse Laura. And even better, she is carrying a cow. If you only knew. 

Game on bloggers, game on.

**RIP Twinkles

The Northwest and Back

So, when I left everyone I was in Vegas. We were there packing up and the next day off we went to the airport. Martha flying directly to Seattle, me? not so much.

It was a sunny day in Vegas at the airport.

Here’s the snow we ran into at Red Rock yesterday.

I got to Phoenix after a while.

And when I got there, I decided that I could not face steerage. I just couldn’t. I was too used to foot space. I love me some foot space. So I did the unthinkable-I upgraded to first class. My friend Julie (jchant) says they charge so much to keep the riff raff out. Like me. Because I didn’t quite know what to do with myself up there.

I took a picture of my feet. Because I could see them.

And a picture of the seat next to me (empty with biiig arm rests)

And, the stuff they gave me.

I got club soda, TWO cookie packs, a pillow AND a blanket. Draped over the huge arm rest. Seriously. The flight attendant thought I was weird taking these pictures. I thought she was very lazy. She hardly waited on me at all. She got to sit and do her crossword the whole flight. Note to self-don’t fly US Airways. Ever. Again.

Mount Baker greeted us as we got to Western Washington-

And, check out the Seattle landmarks.

Seattle docks, Safeco and Century Link Fields.

Took a picture of the mountain on the way home to Tacoma. But I didn’t take any pictures whilst I was there. Not one.

I was only here for a couple of days. Watched some football, checked out the new ovens (sweet) and did my biz. Oh, and went to Nordstrom (again) and this time I did a little retail therapy and got a new credit card. It’s time I got some rewards.

Then hopped a plane for home sweet home.

Sunrise to the south and the Cascade range. There are three mountains there (4 actually, but it’s really hard to see the 4th). I do miss the mountains.

But when I got back, the fields of Minnesota were just fine with me-

 

Plugged into the radio (my favorite station),

and arrived in St. Charles, all in one piece.

Except I’m still missing these clothes.

A Little Vacation, A Lotta Travel-Chapter 1

So, as I said I took a little vacay last week. I think it was last week. I started out by travelling to Vegas to see Cody.

I took the early van to MSP

And while I was waiting for this, I finished this

The first of the  winter Skacel/Knit Purl Hunter KAL.

I headed out of MSP and made a stop in Denver. While I was flying there, the guy next to me said he was sure relieved that the flight wasn’t cancelled because of the snow storm in Denver. Really? Snow Storm? I am mightily glad I didn’t know that before I flew.

It was a little snowy, but not bad.

See the snow didn’t stick to the ground. So I got in just in time to wait.

DIA is kind of a weird place. The Frontier lady told me it’s supposed to look like the snowy rocky mountains. Maybe.

And then to Vegas.

The purpose of going to Vegas at this time was to see Angie who went with a group for her 30th birthday. But it was also to see Cody, and to visit with Martha.

Well, I did visit with Cody and ran all over with Martha, but never got to see Angie. She was very busy celebrating on the Strip.

Meanwhile, Martha and I ran around Vegas. We went to the Old Navy and Nordstrom Rack, (that was just the first night-we returned to Old Navy the next day) followed by the Quiltique quilt store, and then to west Vegas to the yarn store. Gosh we were busy.

The weather was beautiful. For the day.

We ate lunch at the Bistro at the Arts Factory, and they had very cool palette tables.

See? Cool. We ate a vegan lunch, and I have to be honest, those Vegans sort of came back at us. We were a little queasy after lunch. It was a delish veggie sandwich with sweet potato fries. We never figured it out, but after a few Tums we felt a little better.

We decided to head towards the strip to see if we could find Angie at O’Shea’s, but instead found this-

That’s what I’m talkin’ about. And it was the half yearly sale. I didn’t buy anything, but enjoyed the sweet ambiance of the customer service known as Nordstrom.

We went out to the strip, to O’Shea’s, but we weren’t able to find Angie. And we had to go meet Cody for dinner. I complained that the strip was too crowded so Martha took this picture to prove my point.

See how disturbing those crowds are? Jeepers. We had to go.

We saw some of the lights of Vegas, and the sunset as we drove away.

The Luxor

The Lights

  

The Sunset

We had Sushi with Cody and his friend Maral. So sushilicious. We were over the attack of the Vegans and thoroughly enjoyed our dinner.

The next day we decided to go to the Ethel M chocolate factory, where they make Mars candy (you know, like M&M’s, Mars bars etc). They also make other fine candies, and have a pretty cool cactus garden. Which, by the way, was getting spruced up for Christmas.

 

After we toured the factory and bought some delicious chocolates, we took a turn around the cactus garden.

 

I took a bazillion pictures, but I have to keep going with the story.

Because after this lovely scene, we decided to go to Red Rock Canyon. (I put in this link because it has the picture gallery, where you can see there really is snow-we couldn’t make that up)

We started the drive and saw this-

 

Lovely sunny mountains on the right, but where we were going,

well, not so much.

We got to the canyon, which was beautiful, by the way

But it was getting pretty chilly and the weather was coming….

As we drove up the canyon,

it started to blow and to snow. My first snow of the season and it’s in Vegas.

I have been to Vegas three times now, and each time it has rained. Each time.

Anyway, by this time I had put on two extra shirts Martha had in the car, and I got out to take the above picture, and Martha got this picture of me

Crazy. Oh, and that blue sweater and coral shirt? They never made it home. Don’t know where they went, but this is the last known picture of those clothes. Sad. But true.

We left the Red Rock Canyon and went directly to the Red Rock Canyon Casino

Yep. After another trip across town to another yarn store that we thought was 5 minutes away but was actually a half hour away and closing when we got there, we met Cody here for dinner buffet. Because seriously, if in Vegas, one must have a casino buffet.

We finally got back to the hotel and packed up for travel early the next day-

And so ends the first part of the journey. Stay tuned for part two-coming soon to a blog near you.