baby business

Oh man. With all these baby bumps popping up all over me I decided to watch this documentary today. And. I don't think things will ever be the same for me. I am so intrigued by midwifery and home births and birthing centers and why our country is obsessed with hospitals and drugs when all of Europe does it differently. Granted, it did freak me out and I watched a lot of births (none of them having screaming ladies or IVs) and I am no where near to having a baby, but it sure is interesting, this whole Business of Being Born...

jen + 50 pounds (sun. rain. hail. sun. rain. cold.)

Ever since Halloween and our 96 pieces of excess candy, that I nearly devoured all by my lonesome, I cannot get enough sugar. I want it for breakfast. And lunch. And sometimes dinner (when B isn't around). I know it's probably that the rain has set in and it gets dark early and I still have NO job and the holidays are coming, but at this rate I'm going to be a balloon by New Year.

On that note, check out this recipe for delicious Glazed Lemon Cookies that I want to make NOW!!!

(What can I say? I'm weak!!)

v 2010 (sunny/gray. 61.)

Sometimes I am way, way, WAY out of touch. As in, so out of touch that I didn't even realize that the 2010 Olympic games are being held just 3 hours away in Vancouver, BC. Hmmm, I guess that's gonna ruin my February "Let's go to Whistler!!" idea. Or, maybe we could luck out and score some bobsledding tickets. Ooooh, or ski jumping... that's kinds cool.

By the way, how do you get that job to create mascots for the Olympics? They're cute and Japanesee and you can see them here.

koozie colds

I need a koozie (is that a word?) for my Slurpee. My digits are freezing, but I can't let go because the deliciousness of my Coke Slurpee is intoxicating and has me in a caffeine/sugar trance. To comepensate, I'm sitting on the sofa with my hat and coat on, using the laptop for warmth. These are the sacrifices I must make to enjoy a frosty beverage when it's kind of chilly out. Texas has ruined my internal thermostat!

It's 4:30 and it's getting dark. Poo!

(sunny. sun. sun. 56.)

What a pretty day! It was super sunny ALL day and crispy and a great day to strut around the hood with the pooch.

^The full moon coming over Phinney Ridge.

^Sunset.
You can see the Olympic Mountains on the right. Not super clear, but still kinds nice!

hall-o! tally

2

The number of trick-or-treaters that came to the door.

96

The number of pieces of candy we have left.

(Me + chocolate + alone in the house = 1 BAD combination!)

hall-o! (no rain. 57.)

Great Fall/Halloween day today! Right after I took this photo the gray skies magically disappeared (I still don't know how that happens) and it was nothing but blue skies and sun the rest of the day. Purrr-fect!

Now. We wait. We wait for candy begging fools that we're not even sure will come to the door or not. Hopefully we get juuuuust enough trick-or-treaters to purge the "crap" candy and save the good stuff for us! (We've already nearly wiped out our supply of peanut butter cups. Mmmm...!)

^B's is Boo! Mine is the little monster.

wrinkle poos (gray but not depressing... yet. boo is wearing her coat. 48.)

Last night, while I was NOT sleeping at 3, 4, 5 o'clock am (interview anxiety), I started thinking about this article on aging and wrinkles written by one of those whack dermatologist who created Proactiv Solution and all of a sudden, I was paranoid about the way I shove my face into my pillow! The article said, and this makes perfect sense, that when you shmoosh your face all up in your pillow for 7-9 hours a night, there is no doubt that it will start to leave a mark and it's usually in the form of wrinkles around your eyes. You know, I'm usually not uber sensitive about this subject (gray hairs are TOTALLY different), but for some reason last night was pure paranoia. I started thinking about my Aunt Jean and the one and only time I saw her in bed. She was all ready to sleep, with hard curlers in her hair and propped up, semi-upright in her bed, surrounded by pillows. This is the way she slept, which I thought I was kind of nuts. But now... Now, I see the appeal. My aunt is in her 60's and she barely has any wrinkles on her face! Could the secret to anti-aging not be an expensive cream, but simply to sleep in this ridiculous manner?

Should I be sleeping upright?

I came to no conclusion, only that right now, with pretty much zero sleep, I think it's all absurd. But, maybe I'll take baby steps and buy a silk pillowcase (also recommended by the article)! Ha!

oh, and...

... this pregnancy epidemic is SPREADING!! I found out today that another friend is knocked up. So, since the beginning of the year 5 of my peeps have gotten themselves impregnated.

I guess I need to come to grips that I am almost in my mid-30's (I'm planning on sticking at 35 by the way, when that day comes) and this sort of thing is going to keep happening, but geesh! Everyone wasn't supposed to go down all at one time! Good thing all are going to be such hip parents and still travel and experience things and come visit their poor, childless friend Jen up here in the Northwest. ;)

wednesday news (gray. no sun. 48. my feet are cold.)

Boo thinks she's a cat and now likes to lay on top of the couch on a blanket that she thinks is hers. She's also exhausted from dog parkin' today.

In other news, I have more interviews but still no job.

Maybe I'm a bad interviewer?? Could that be possible?

boo and the bear

One of the highlights of the weekend was when Boo decided to take on a 150 pound Bernese Mountain Dog at the off leash park on Saturday. Mind you, she weighs in at about 20 pounds so the whole thing was pretty laughable. She was jumping and biting and growling at this horse of a canine and no one really seemed to care. But, being the good dog owner that I am, I jumped in and tore her off of the monster. It's funny because a little circle of dogs had gathered like it was a high school fight.

I think she would have won the battle if I wouldn't have dragged her out of there. She might be small, but she's one feisty little bitch.

P.S. I'm already bored with my weather reports. It rains a little almost every day but it's not all the time and the sun does peek out for a little while every day. So far it's not so bad.

mostly gray, but nice (sunny at 4:30!)

mostly gray with a little sun

Pretty sunset today. I wish I was up on Phinney Ridge so I could have gotten a better view, but it wasn't bad from the window.

cloudy most of the day but some sun (65)

I love this old green car of one of our neighbors that's always parked on the street and when I saw it today, covered in bright yellow leaves it put a smile on my face. Boo and I walked passed and noticed it and then looked up and BAM! There are changing leaves of red and yellow and dark plum everywhere. The air is clean and crisp and people are outside and, well, I still love this city. Even when the sky is gray the other stuff in your periphery is so bright and cheery that you don't really notice the gray all that much. The houses are all painted bright blues and yellows and reds and then the flowers and vegetables in the front are all crazy with color.

It was a good walk today...

showers with sunshine in the afternoon

OK. It rained today. And not just nice, drizzly rain, but buckets and buckets of rain. And, although I hear that the "buckets" part of the rain equation is not quite the norm, it still kind of stinks. Especially when you leave your rain slicker in the backseat of your car when you are now not actually IN the car.

Oh well, lesson learned.

Big news: Interview on Tuesday. Hopefully someone will find me job worthy... More to come.

morning sun afternoon showers (high 68)

Why is my blog still on Central time? I've told it again and again "LADY, we're now on Paaahcific time. Capiche?"

No one listens. My phone does the same thing. Stubborn pieces of technology that I don't quite understand.

(written at 5:46 pacific time)

wet stuff and wee cars

The rain started today. Finally. Oodles and oodles of rain fell from the sky from mid-morning until around 4:00 pm when the sun came out. And now, it's super duper sunny! What a deal. This place has some weird weather. I'm going to try and keep a little weather journal through the Fall and Winter so I can look back and be accurate about how bad (or not bad) the weather really is here in the Pacific Northwest. And, lucky for you peeps, I'm going to do it on my blog! Now, who's excited?!!

Also, we went and test drove cars today in the pouring rain. B has decided to trade in the sedan for a wee (he has MINI envy) one that has Boo proof upholstery and better park-ability in this here Seattle tight parking scene. There are so many choices these days: Yaris, Accent, Scion... Decisions, decisions...

7 photos

The mail man finally came today with my missing 4x6 prints, so I could finally finish the wall of photos in the hall to add some life and color to these white walls. I love IKEA's brown frames with a 5x7 mat.

^Notice how they are all perfectly spaced and aligned? Math baby. Math!

^Little G on the right and Mom, Sis and The Dogs at the beach.

1 oops 2 bake

Two Things

1: I need to stop applying to jobs late at night. It's dangerous because I get all cozy in my jammies and slippers and dog's head on my leg and I make OOPsies all over the place! Mostly in that dreaded drizzle one calls a cover letter (I hate those things!). Last night I made two mistakes. One was simply a typo, combining two words (uh, thanks for that one spell check!), but the other was a big one. Let's just say, when you're applying for a job at a research facility you don't want to reiterate how great it would be to work in real estate. Ya. We can write that one off for sure.

2: I'm turning into Susie Homemaker with all this time off. It's very, very strange. I used to be cooking illiterate and now I'm whipping up meals like a mad woman! Last night, I made homemade potato soup, thanks to a phone call to dear ole Mom, and you know what? It wasn't bad! It was actually quite edible. So far I've made: pot roast, tortilla soup, grilled chicken with broccoli, panko crusted baked chicken and a couple of other things old age won't let me recall, but they were all nom nom nom!

Come visit! I've also learned how to use the coffee press. FINALLY!

^Homemade potato soup!

4 silver ones

I used to be proud of my occasional gray hair. I thought they were pretty. And shiny. And I preferred to label them "silver" over gray. They were my little badge of honor and wisdom and they didn't bother me in the slightest. I would brag "I have three old hairs". Take that!

And, I had three for ages. No more, no little; I was sticking with three (one of my favorite numbers - go PRIME numbers!).

But, tonight I spotted this one:


See it "sparkling" against the chocolate hair background, next to my pointer finger? That puppy is brand spankin' new and I don't like it. It sprouted out of nowhere and I'm afraid others might follow beside, behind and above it. Am I fertilizing the silvers with early bird dinners and orthopedic pillows?! Is it all the sleep and fresh air that I'm getting in the new city?

Whatever it is, I don't like it, but I'm gonna take it. No plucking, no dying... This little rug rat is just gonna have to be accepted and die on it's own accord (whatever that might be, I have no idea).

A**hole silver hair! (Can I call a hair an a**hole? Ope! Too late! ;)