03-31-12

Plans changed for the weekend, no longer exploring Sunriver/Bend.

Which gives us another crack at some of the things this weekend that we previously said “no” to. I was the very last registrant for the Running of the Fools 10K in the rain this morning. Anastasia made her water polo match after all, which was good since two girls got fouled out and they were playing with no subs for awhile. And church not missed after all.

Happy Palm Saturday!

03-30-12

We got creative with “moving more” this evening between dropping Anastasia off at the movies and picking Xander up from the YMCA, while also exchanging my heart monitor for a simple pedometer.

Walking the mall area isn’t particularly spectacular, but the various magnolias in bloom were. I like all magnolias, but these floppy ones are particularly fun. Rejoicing in a break in our foul weather, and in the arrival of another weekend!

03-29-12

I’ll stick with my food theme again today…

I was really excited about a new quick-fix vegetarian cookbook, but all the recipes seem to be so bland. With Bruce at a meeting tonight and Anastasia carb loading for water polo, decided to try a pasta dish. Penne and roasted asparagus with orange gremolata sounds flavorful.

The green salad, at left, was GONE (added coconut and fruit since the guys were absent), but the pasta needed more coaxing (and Johnny’s seasoning!) to get eaten.

Leftover meatloaf and penne coming to a meal list soon...

03-28-12

The cook complained about how long they took to make, but this new recipe is a keeper.

Turkey meatloaf made in a muffin tin. I’ve been following a blog- “Squawkfox: where frugal living is sexy, delicious, and fun”, and some of her recipes look fun. I normally try not to eat meat on weekdays, but adding craisins was irresistible and I had to try one.

Tomorrow I’m the cook, and we’re trying a vegetarian asparagus pasta.

03-27-12

Sorry, Anastasia, the best photo in the group is the one you aren’t in…

Someone cleaned their room to earn their netbook back. Another someone went back to Ikea to get a missing part to install her light.

Let there be light (very bright light!) in a clean hand-wallpapered room!

03-26-12

Sometimes I feel like I live in a very strange land.

Isn’t this a cute succulent garden I got from my sister? I didn’t know it came from Shanna right away though. Bruce left the gift on the porch while he moved the lawn, and the balloons and card blew away in the strong wind! We laughed about it.

Then today an elderly sounding gentleman called us. He was walking in the woods 50 miles away and he found two mylar balloons and a card addressed to me! So odd that he would bother tracking me down, but he was curious how the balloons got there. We laughed some more.

Isn’t the best gift the gift of laughter?

03-25-12

Today…

Hunger Games at Cinetopia; movie did the book justice.
Dash into Ikea for two items; not really, there is no dashing at Ikea.
Walk through the Better Living expo for green living and vegan eating. Here’s Xander with a sample in his hand, because he’s willing to try absolutely anything (and not make a face afterwards like I do), gazing at the chicken coop roof that he swore were fake plants (with real dirt?!?).
Spending birthday funds at Jantzen Beach Target waiting for the traffic to die down.

Why can’t more of life be devoted to weekends?

03-24-12

The warm weather today was such a wonderful treat! I got a few rows of lettuce planted, ran the lake, and Xander and I went to the Humane Society.

We had a great dog today. Xander shies away from the bigger dogs, but this one said NICE DOG in big letters, and she was indeed. She didn’t like to pose for the camera, but I won’t hold that against her.

03-23-12

Hmmm… not sure whether to post a photo of my decorated office or me at the Vegan/Vegetarian potluck…

Well, there will be other potlucks, but not my office space decorated for another 10 years, so guess I’ll go with that.

I like the mardi gras colors instead of black. Everyone in the building came to wish me a happy birthday since the decorations screamed out in our subdued environment. Having fun with forty…

03-22-12

And so starts my birthday weekend. Look at this mosaic that Bruce had made out of years of blog photos! I LOVE it!

Also enjoyed a fun scavenger hunt that eventually lead me to dinner out, since tomorrow we are tied up with other plans. At work I got a ransom note to find Xander on a bench at the lake, then to Electric Bean for coffee and another urgent clue, a downtown statue, the library to find a book with a ditzy librarian throwing me off track, to the pool to pick up Anastasia, and finally GPS coordinates to Kelso for dinner. Fun!

03-21-12

We’ve sold a few handmade tote bags for Relay for Life already! Tonight I cut up another batch of unused Relay T-shirts so that Debbie can sew them. Our finance team may be small, but we rally well together.

And a shout out of thanks to my family for already financially supporting the Longview Fischer’s and American Cancer Society!

03-20-12

Happy Tuesday. Another spring day that doesn’t feel like spring.

And here we go again with the youtube video. We were in the local paper today, starting another round of attention.

03-19-12

Bruce puts on his earphones and he is suddenly in his own little world. I have carried on so many one sided conversations with him that he never hears. Then he wonders why I’m yelling at home.

Here he is, caught in the act of “Operation Clean Dishes”, so that Anastasia will never ever be caught up with her chore of emptying the dishwasher.

Every day life on an every day Monday…

03-18-12

Corned beef and cabbage and a few rounds of Mexican train!

Today took us north to visit with Grandma & Grandpa. When we left town it was snowing hard, but luckily we were able to proceed; I didn’t want to have to reschedule the visit again!

The meal, especially the cabbage and cherry pie, was amazing.

03-17-12

Today was an education in water polo, at Anastasia’s first match. She played goalie part of the time, and swam up and down the pool a ton of times. The Mark Morris girls lost badly, but the other teams had a lot more girls, so they could sub out more. We had several girls paying Varsity and JV, so they were really pooped after swimming and treading water so long.

My new camera doesn't have a sports mode, so I wasn't sure of the quality of photos. I kept clicking away, and got several interesting shots.

Long day at the pool, 10:30am to 3:30pm!

03-16-12

Today was a dumb day to wear boots.

First, it was weigh in day at work for the Biggest Loser challenge, and that involves taking off your shoes.

Then int he evening we stopped off at one of the duplexes to check on the kitchen remodel project, and the ground there is a soggy muddy mess.

Hanging up the boots after another long week, ready for a weekend, no matter how fast it will zoom by!

03-15-12

Look at those rosy lips! Drowning their food in Frank’s buffalo sauce seems to have that effect…

Since I’ve requested that the entire family accompany me to the Vegan/Vegetarian potluck next week in honor of my birthday, we plotted what to bring for our potluck dish… pizza won out.

03-14-12

Dark and dreary day, dark house, teen watching TV in the dark… just playing with the camera settings after a grueling day and wishing there was some chocolate in this house… LOL!

03-13-12

“Congratulations, Michele!” – truck boss
“Thanks, but for what?” – me
“I see diapers in the back of your car, congratulations must be in order.” – truck boss

Ah ha ha. The diaper are for our diaper drive at work, not news of any new little ones in my life. Which he knew, so points to him.

No log trucks rolling again today due to weather. Wonder if my presentation tomorrow could possibly be snowed out? Public speaking builds character, but it also raises blood pressure...

03-12-12

These manic Mondays are getting really really old! Since I got nothing done today for putting about all the fires, packed the laptop home tonight, then to the Bean, because on days like this I deserve coffee with loads of chocolate and sugar!

Got my postcard for a free birthday drink at Starbucks today, too, so see some more liquid enjoyment in my near future…

03-11-12

22 items on my to do list today, doesn’t quite seem like a quiet day at home or a Sabbath, does it? I suppose it distracts me from whining about the dreaded time change.

Started the day with going through the Sunday paper looking for diaper coupons (the one week I don’t see them!) for the diaper drive then stormed Walmart with several other coupons. Ended the day with "fro yo" with my honey, Amazing Race, and self-mani/pedicure.

Tomorrow restarts the week, the hectic schedule, and the to do list.

03-10-12

Funerals bring weird thoughts, emotions, and conversations.

Today we drove to Morton to celebrate the life of Grandpa George Dills.

That lead to discussions about quality of children vs. grandchildren relationships, traits inherited from whom, and church potluck store bought to homemade ratios.

“I’ve never seen a funeral with open mic time go well.” – A friend at church

03-09-12

Still life of a successful dinner party.

We freaked them out with our bird clock, confused them with our Westport discussion (which one?), and made them smile (and sweat!) with our kung fu Kinect game.

Happy Friday!

03-08-12

When we woke up to snow on Monday, it was hard to believe the forecast that today would be a warm gorgeous day. But, it happened. It was so nice that I left the office without my coat and scarf!

Bliss.

03-07-12

Three days later and the silly youtube video is still capturing the attention of Xander, Bruce, and evidently 130,000 more people! Seriously?!?

What’s also big at our house right now is Storage Wars, the TV show where people buy abandoned storage units. You can often hear “YEPPPP” in our house, and last night when Xander went with Bruce to collect rent, Xander said “this Is enough for us to buy a storage locker!”.

Cheers…

03-06-12

We woke up to snow this morning! The kids were excited to have a two hour delay. I was not excited to be a big girl and slide my little Scion to work. Weyerhaeuser is not excited to have more harvesting delays. I was excited to have a saner day at the office.

“Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough.” – Earl Wilson

03-05-12

Ewww! Bruce thought the most disgusting part of this photo is my funky "alone in the basement" hairstyle, but look at all that sweat!

Bruce and I both work out in the morning, but in different buildings on different schedules. He had to meet Tym a little early today, making us both available post workout for a photo for my Move More Eat Well album.

Bruce doesn't excercise in his fedora... or does he?!?

03-04-12

I drove to Tacoma today to meet with my book club. $20 in gas, the most expensive cup of coffee I’ve ever had, and 6 hours further behind in my life, so may not have been the best plan. But it was a blessing to see old friends and discuss a book Kristin Hannah gave free copies of to our group.

And what did Bruce do? Stay home and watch hits and comments on our 2008 national park road trip video that has gone viral:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QzBk7TpMP8c
32,000 views and climbing, with insulting and funny comments…

03-03-12

It wasn’t an exceptionally good weather day, but it must be way improved over lately, because I found myself “moving more” at the lake three different times today!

Being at the lake makes me want to get the paddleboard out – that’s what’s missing from this photo! But it is still way too cold and muddy. I don’t go under this south end bridge very much, but the pilings look new to me.

Feel like I squandered a free weekend day – didn’t relax or really get anything done, and *poof* it’s over, darn it.

03-02-12

Friday night, the gangs all here. Xander, Anthony, Owen, and Michael.

Wow, it feels like it has been a long week! Looking forward to a quiet down day tomorrow.

03-01-12

Freaky! Bruce was playing around with my camera tonight. He knows how to use it way better than I do.

I’m not real motivated to do my normal things tonight. I’d rather be working on the digital album of our trip. But I finally tore myself away for a cardio DVD and some reading and meditation on the treadmill.

Happy March!