01-31-13

Bruce officially joins the payroll of FFRC (Family Finance Resource Center) tomorrow.  Who knew the path would lead here.  Now his world is full of completing grant requests, trying to get a small business incubator off the ground.

01-30-13

The first month of 2013 is almost over.  Time just keeps marching on.  I feel like I haven’t made much headway on things, but looking a the calendar, I guess that isn't too surprising.  Today was Xander’s last swim meet, so maybe life will hit a different routine now…

01-29-13

“You guys are both loud!” – Xander

I was listening to an on-line scrapbook class and Anastasia was practicing her flute.  She has solo ensemble this weekend, so we are hearing more flute.

Make a joyful noise…

01-28-13

It’s the end of the evening.  I’m hungry, my headache still rages, but I’ve eaten healthy all day and don’t want to blow it now.  And so I keep reaching for the mandarin oranges…

It must be Monday…

01-27-13

Fischer movie afternoon.

Anastasia had the opportunity to watch a history related movie for extra credit.  After much discussion, she got the movie Platoon approved, and invited a friend over.

The Vietnam War would not be my history era of choice, but there were some interesting threads, and a cast of well known actors.

01-26-13

Here’s Xander with the paparazzi.

Today was a big swim meet in town, and Grandma and Grandpa came down to watch.  We also met up with old friends form Aberdeen in the bleachers.

Xander got a ribbon and shaved some time off his breastroke, but is just counting down the last two weeks of the season at this point.

01-25-13

TGIF!

This evening I headed over to scrapbook with friends.  I had my rentals album still packed up form last time I scrapbooked with friends, and I planned out a few 2012 in review layouts.

Nice way to kick off the weekend…

01-24-13

Reminder that I went all of 2012 without buying any clothes.  Pent up demand meets a fun website called zulilly, and suddenly the little packages start arriving!  It’s risky for me to buy clothes without trying them on, but I’m pretty happy with today’s shipments.

It was fun for a few weeks, now back to reality...

01-23-13

I asked Xander to fish my camera out of my purse.

I envisioned a close-up of my face with the car as the backdrop.

This is what I got instead.

Today I drove to the park & ride to catch a carpool south, and drove to the pool to pick up the kids.  Both trips took longer than I expected, but such is life…

01-22-13

For the second time this month, got to the pool without my camera!  I remembered to grab it this evening, but seems I grabbed my phone instead of camera!

Xander swam back to back events, which would wear anyone out.  He’s recharging with video games.

01-21-13

Let’s play hockey!

Worked until noon, then we headed to Portland to watch a Winterhawks afternoon game.  Portland didn’t play well, but plenty of fights, and nice seats.  As part of the package we have a Burgerville card to enjoy hazelnut milkshakes, plus Bruce won tickets to a February game!

Life is good.

01-20-13

At 1:30pm I started making a pizza crust from scratch, for dinner.  I got Bruce a deep dish pizza pan for Christmas, and this was the first day where ingredients on hand and time to let the dough rise intersected.  He was appalled that there was zucchini on his Christmas gift.  Final verdict: it was good but not great.

01-19-13

I’ve been working on my 2012 photos, in hopes of carving out time to scrapbook them soon.  I noticed that I had a lot of Electric Bean photos.  I guess that makes sense since it's our “third place”.  Here’s an EB photo to kick off 2013.  Not sure why it takes 3 people to order drinks, but some weeks are like that...

BTW, we had dinner at our “fourth place”, Las Rocas.  Again.

01-18-13

Ah, another Friday.  These days turn into weeks and then it is suddenly Christmas again… oh, wait, getting ahead of myself.

Took this photo at Red Canoe Credit Union, with their hip graphic design.  Bruce is so at home there – he loves any kind of financial institution, is in training to maybe be on their board some day, and is here all the time with various aspects of the rentals.  Today, refinancing one of the properties…

01-17-13

I got a few other photos where you can actually tell that it’s Xander, but I liked this photo best.  I love my camera, but it’s not great with action shots.  Maybe I need to try the Kids & Pets setting…

He’s decided he likes the breast stroke.  Anastasia thought he did so well that he deserved Subway for dinner.

01-16-13

Xander elected to not attend the dinner party we were invited to this evening.  Too many girls.  And he gets to eat sooner.  He is starved after swim practice.  I was surprised that he actually cooked – he made fried eggs and a grilled ham sandwich, chanting “steak and eggs” the whole time.

Happy midweek!

01-15-13

The kids already know how to type, thanks to years of texting.

Now Xander is getting an opportunity to learn Microsoft Office products inside and out, thanks to his IT Academy class.

Today he passed the test to earn his Word certification.

Real skills for the future, love it…

01-14-13

This is the part of the photo I like enough to keep.  One frame of my glasses always has glare!

Life on this Monday:

• Coffee date to discuss a speaking engagement, oy
• Going wild on zulily.com again, oops
• Experimenting with polenta, hmmm
• Vacation planning, fun!

01-13-12

Girls with different hair.

Anastasia curled her hair for her first real double date, I used my brush dryer for the first time since my perm.

It throws the guys in our lives off, but its fun to have different hair…

01-12-12

The guys watching the game.

I was trying to figure out how to transition the blog talk from a quiet day at home to getting and staying healthy, but the big “current weather: 10 degrees” alert on the screen is a good segue.

Common wisdom has it that staying indoors, where it's warm and toasty, is easier on your immune system than being outside in the cold. Problem is, being inside puts you in close constant contact with other people and their germs.  Getting out in the fresh air provides a break from the germs circulating inside and can actually boost your immunity.

But, baby, it’s cold outside.  Not 10 degrees here, but too cold for any winter adventures.

01-11-13

“That shirt is cute, Mom.  But you look 13.” – Anastasia

“Cute top!” – Allergy shot lady

“Thanks.  My resolution last year was to not buy any clothes, and I didn’t, so I went out and bought some new clothes on new years.” – Me

“Wow, I could never do that!” - Allergy shot lady

The top gets a thumbs up.  Today being Friday gets a thumbs up.  Electric Bean being standing room only gets a thumbs down.  Good for them, bad for our mellow coffee date.

01-10-12

I thought Xander was working on some secret code, then I realized he was working on homework.  It’s fruit in Chinese!

“A dog won't forsake his master because of his poverty; a son never deserts his mother for her homely appearance.” – weird Chinese proverb

Happy Thursday!

01-09-13

OK, tracking down family members at the end of the day for portraits is getting old, but it seems to be all I have this week.  So here’s the biggest kid.

This week he’s been busy getting things done off the honey do list, since the rental is complete and the next adventure hasn’t yet begun.  My hero!

01-08-13

I’m an equal kid tormenting mom, so today it’s Anastasia’s turn.  Little miss “can I have friends spend the night?” and “can I go to the movies?” and “nobody likes soup, Mom” has a new trick to start her day with curly hair – wrapping it around a headband and sleeping that way.

01-07-13

I went into the man cave for today’s blog photo.  It was dark, it smelled of heavy cologne, and the TV was on.

He swapped out his Spiderman wallpaper boarder for Chicago Bears, but I see that he still has his Spiderman pillow case cover…

01-06-13

I should have had Anastasia move her shake and had you guessed where the fam was hanging out.  Sunday night is dessert night, and tonight we descended on BK.  The guys had molten “meatball” sundaes, but I stuck with brownie.

01-05-13

We quickly decided that it was too cold to walk today.  But we gave it a go in St Helens, OR.  When we happened upon this statue of Seaman, the pet of Meriwether Lewis of Lewis & Clark, we burst out laughing.  When Anastasia was in elementary school one day, Anastasia came home and exclaimed out of the blue that “Lewis and Clark didn’t eat Seaman!”.  We had no idea how to respond to that one, until we found out that Seaman was a dog.

Sometimes history can be interesting.  Seaman was bit by a beaver and had to have surgery on his leg.  Seaman was also stolen by Indians.  The group ate 263 dogs while traveling the Lewis and Clark Trail, but Seaman was indeed spared.

01-04-13

End of another quarter, time to take stock of books read.  Read 15 books for the quarter, and 48 for the year.  I can do better, hope to do better this year.

Most thought provoking: Lucky by Alice Sebold

Best beach read: Naughty Neighbor by Janet Evanovich

Best Christian fiction: Unveiled: Tamar by Francine Rivers

Quirkiest: Autobiography of Santa Clause by Jeff Guinn

Best cruise through the Bible (good book): The Women's Devotional Guide to the Bible: A One-Year Plan for Studying, Praying, and Responding to God's Word

Looking forward to cuddling up with a book this weekend…

01-03-13

Moved new tenants in tonight.  Appraiser comes back tomorrow to verify that we really did replace the torn out kitchen.  New Ikea kitchen cabinets look way better than ours.  The coral jeweled countertop is the same though, LOL!  People seem to like the black kickboards I designed, fancy.

Moving on...

01-02-12

They want to know why.  Why them.  Why not?  Part one of “operation different photos”.

Fathers and daughters have complex relationships.  Fireworks for new years – indoors and out!  One wants everything figured out, one is in the midst of figuring it out.  One wants what’s best for the other, the other doesn’t know what they want or what’s best.

Teenagers and dads, oh boy.

01-01-13

Guess what we did today?!?  Broke my clothes shopping fast.  :)

So my word for 2013 is “vitality”.  Odd word, but I really liked the definition: the state of being strong and active; energy, and the capacity to live, grow, or develop.

I want to be strong.  I will focus on efforts to stay healthy, including vitamins, extra sleep, and taking vitamins.  I will still focus on being lean and fit too.

I want to grow.  In my walk with God, being consistent with a prayer journal & continuing to memorize 1 John.  In growing our savings, soak beans & keep striving for simplification & lowering costs.  In exploring, see a few things from the 1000 places to see book & a few from our Portland area list.

I want to live with vitality.  I plan to re-energize my blog photos, read more books, write a book, and scrapbook more.

Happy New Year