Goodbye, Lady Latifa

After a long day of depositions, a hectic drive to DragonBoat practice while changing from a suit into sweats, and a lovely dinner at Sal's, its time to say a sad goodbye to our claim horse, Lady Latifa. Josh went up to see her first race of the season, and her last one as our horse, on Sunday. She didn't *exactly* finish in a top place, but she did get claimed since she had the tell-tale red ribbon on her bridle when returning to horse stalls from the race. Here's some farewell photos to Lady L, and now its up to "Long Shot" Ted and the rest of the Magnificent Seven to find us another winner!

The Lovely Lady Latifa





The Final Race




Look at those lovely silks on the jockey!




The man, the myth, the legend: Steve Bullock, Horse Trainer

Just one of those days

It was a very long icky day at the office. Which is doubly saying something given today is Sunday and supposed to not be a day at the office. Well, I can't really complain that much - its good for those old billables, but I missed out on a lunch with my buddy and Lady Latifa's last race (more on the claim of our horse later--I am inconsolable at the moment). Well, at least there is this to keep my sanity while reviewing documents. I personally like manic mode the best.

Organic Goodness

We got our first home delivery of organic produce today:

Its from Pioneer Organics, a home delivery service Jenn and Rob told us about. Its great - not only do they deliver, but the produce is great. Josh swears that the apple he had (a braeburn) was the best he's ever had, and the basil smells absolutely scrumpcious. This almost makes me want to eat my vegetables (but lima beans are on the definte don't-deliver list). Goodness, we recycle, buy organic vegetables, next thing you know, we'll be chaining ourselves to trees in the Columbia National Gorge! I guess after almost 10 years, I'm finally turning into an Oregonian, or even better (or is that worse), a Portlandian.

Southern Spice is Comin' to Town

Today has been a very, very, VERY long day, and is shaping up to be a long night at the office. But there is some very good news: Erica gets to come visit in August. As she said in her email, YIPEEEEE!!

Ta Da!!!!

Thanks to Josh's most excellent HTML skills - we have randomly generated Melo pictures back for your viewing pleasure!! Be sure to click the refresh button, since there's about 100 little melos to look at now! Okay, back to work for me, but at least I can check on melo (my current favorite is the Andy Warhol rendering in black and white - ahh, the wonders of PhotoShop).

Pictures as promised

As promised, here's some pictures of (no, not the couch since we did not have time to straighten up after dinner) the front to show the progress from almost a year to the day. First, the before picture of the area by the fire hydrant where Josh replanted some sorry-looking lavenders we had that were in desperate need of getting in the ground:

Pretty sad looking little lavenders!




The master planter


Well, Josh was right - they did make it:




Here's the latest knitting works on the needles. The bag before and after felting:






Viola!


And the flower from the KnitWhit Flower Kit from Lani (after a 2nd round of felting):

Is it really Sunday night already?

Dang, weekends go too fast. A short visit with Greg, Lani and Brandon on their way back to Seattle, a quick trip to the Portland Farmer's Market and Max & Hilde's Nursery to pick up some trumpet flowers and hops, and Sunday night with Jenn, Rob and Jack and Josh's burger bar - all fun and too short. So much for getting any real work done this weekend, but at least I finished our Florida trip photo book and the little lime green llama yarn bag, and refelted the KnitWhits flower and my own pattern purse. Now its time to get working on finishing up the roses for the purse. I guess in retrospect, I should be writing down the patterns I've made up, but they are mainly variations on patterns I like but have to monkey with because I don't have the exact same yarn in the stash or right needle sizes. All right, I guess I better check my calender to see what horrors work has in store for tomorrow . . .

To Bookcase, or not to bookcase

Okay, I haven't posted any pictures of the new couch, mainly because I have not figured out how to do it on my own and I think Josh is reluctant to show me unless I delete a really, really cute picture of he and Melo snuggled fast asleep (he seems to think it is most unmanly). Anyways, we have a bookcase dilemma. The Billy(tm), aka Ikea bookcase, no longer fits la decor, so must go. Since we moved the chair-n-a-half over to compensate for the new lovely sofa, the bookcase is blocked a bit and we need to find something in the small space. Two options- behind the chair-n-a-half, or if its really skinny (necessitating tallness as a property as well), for in front of the internal chimney. Nothing is really catching our eye from either Pier 1 or CostPlus, our two mainstays, and everything from Meier & Frank or Furniture World is too boring, so we're currently at a loss. But the Billy(tm) must go, and go soon.

In addition to inside house photos, I'll have to start posting outside photos soon so we can chronicle the new fence. Our neighbors agreed to cedar (yeah - no white vinyl), and we've picked the contractor and got the bid. We just have to talk to the backside neighbors and see if they will contribute (which would be nice, but if not, thank goodness for the IRS savings plan, aka tax refund). The contractor is scheduling about 2 weeks out, and given how excited I am about getting rid of the nasty old fence Josh is positively bonkers. I can't wait to see what great plans he comes up with for planting - perhaps I can convince him we need just a few more lavender and rosemary plants if I agree to a few more blueberry bushes as part of the bargain.

Now that I have wasted some time, its off to a new place with L&E associates -- Echo -- to catch up and celebrate with a former fellow associate who announced/found out she's pregnant! I can't wait to see how she's doing-its her first one and we always used to wonder which one of us would go first into babyhood and debate provisions for a first-time mommy contract (also tm). She's already thinking ahead--since her dog is presently in doggy day-care, she's wondering whether there are any combo doggy/child day care places and if you get a 2 for 1 discount. There might be some business potential in that idea . . . .

Two Sausages and a Margarita

It has been a nice lazy weekend, especially since I'e decided procastination today is worth more to me than having a long work day wishing I had worked today tomorrow. Greg, Lani and Brandon came down on their way to Eagle Crest for a family get together/vacation. While Greg, Brandon and Josh played Marvel Superheros (NB: attacking Magneto head on is generally a not a good idea), Lani and I took a quick trip over to the Yarn Garden for some more knitting goodies. She surprised me with the cute KnitWhit Flower Kit , which I am working on today until my crochet class at Michaels. I hope to have it finished and felted by the time they are back on their way thru PDX next weekend. There are just some many cute flower patterns out there - and it's a great way to use up left over yarn bits.
After much knitting and gaming (and laughing at the gamers while knitting), we met up with Jenn, Rob and Jack to check out a pizza place Lani found out about through her foodies: Apizza Schools . Lani's foodies don't lie - there was a wait even at 8:00 pm, but it was well worth it. Plus, the wait let Brandon and Jack run off some energy with sidewalk races. Though a bit like Seinfeld's Soup Nazi (you are not allowed more than one meat topping per pizza, and don't dare ask for parmesan cheese to sprinkle on your pizza), the pizza (two sausages and a margarita) and antipasto plate were excellent!! Kudos to Lani for another great restaurant find for us in PDX. Jenn, Jack and Rob then surprised us all with ice cream sandwiches. Just talking about dinner & dessert from last night is making me hungry, so I think I will have to go wrestle Josh for the one left-over piece of pizza. Maybe I will share if he agrees to working on getting our random melo picture generator back up and running . . . .

My Kingdom for a Peep!

Ahh yes, I realize it is well past Easter now (dang, how did that happen?), but there are still some Peeps (tm) lying about in the pile of left over Easter candy. Josh found this link for me on Peeps and I must say the science is pretty impressive. Now if we had done this sort of stuff instead of dissecting defenseless frogs and earthworms back in high school science, my academic career could have had an entirely different course.

Too bad it is only Tuesday, today definitely felt like a Thursday. And, since its Tuesday, it means that we have Dragon Boat practice tomorrow. Not a good sign that my arms and chest muscles already hurt and we've only had one practice! Hopefully, the rain won't scare off too many folks - on Monday us hardy souls who made it thru the downpour which started precisely 10 minutes before practice were rewarded with a rainbow and some sun breaks. We'll have to see who makes it back for the next torture, I mean paddling, session.

Got to see the polar bears up at PDX Zoo today - bonus work boon-doggle: speaking at a conference at the Zoo, and then getting to go to the Zoo. I just will never understand why polar bears have to be one of the most vicious animals when they are the cutest (next to Melo, of course). PDX Zoo's display gets you up close, and wow - the bears' heads are HUGE. They still need a zoo where you can pet a polar bear (a well-drugged, under anethesia one that is!)

Dang Daylight Savings

Well, I want my hour back. It has been too fun of a weekend to lose a whole hour. We just finished dinner with Jenn, Rob and Jack - Josh made some great lentil soup so the ham we didn't have for Easter did not go to waste. Other than the lost hour and a very rude man at the Interstate Fred Meyers (I don't know why I keep going back there - their Starbuck's sucks, its still full of freaky people and the parking lot is horrible!! Time to switch back to the St. John's Safeway!), not too bad for a Sunday. The house is finally clean (save the kitchen, which is a bit of a disaster area currently given all the dishes and various lentil-soup making bits around), It was an absolute pit, so it feels much better - plus - we have a new couch. We'll post pictures later in the week, but here is a sneak peak of what we got:
The Sophia Sofa It is SO great - finally feels like grown up furniture and Josh, Melo and I can now all snuggle in the same room with the TV. The three of us spent most of the morning there that was so nice under the blanket, with the rain on the window all snug and warm. Too bad its not football season! Time to go digest and watch the rest of the Chronicles of Riddick. So far, its a heck of a lot better than Closer which we watched last night courtesy of Jeff and Melanie. Well written movie, but the only word I can use to describe the story is ugly. Absolutely none of the characters have redeeming qualities (I think it may have actually made me go off of Clive Owen!!)