No More Dr. Carpenstein

Hi everyone!  Bet you thought you'd never hear from me again.  Not to worry--things might have been a little crazy for a while there, but they're normalizing now.  And my life has changed a lot.  Remember how in my last post I said I was dating a guy?  Well, here he is!

Ah, U-Swirl, how I love you.

And here he is again!

 Yep, we got married!  Hooray!

Aren't we just so cute?

We got married on October 11th of last year, so the date was 10-11-12.  Handy, huh?  It's sure to be easy to remember!  

It's amazing what can happen in a year.  For example, almost exactly one year after my first date with Scott, we celebrated our 6 month wedding anniversary.  I find this very amusing.  Yes, to most people (at least the ones I work with), that's a bit quick.  But I have no regrets.  Being married is awesome!  You know, just in case you were wondering... Hopefully soon I'll tell you about some of the adventures we've had so far.  There have been quite a few--fishing for beans, trying new recipes, trying not to be eaten by alien potatoes (man, most of these revolve around food, don't they?  Weird...).  Anyways, we're happy and doing well.  And it's summer!  (Meaning no homework for the Mr.)  Hooray!  

More to come soon.  Ish. :)

Adventures in Paradise...Bakery

Earlier this week, someone needed to pick up lunch for a meeting we had going on in our office.  Usually another lady takes care of lunch stuff, but she was out sick.  (We missed her a lot.)  Therefore, I was the lucky one chosen to get the food.  We have a Paradise Bakery right around the corner from work, so it was not big deal.  Or at least, it wouldn't have been for a normal person.  Ha.

I walked in and found out that the menu we were basing the order off of was the catering menu, not the normal cafe menu.  Snafu #1.  Luckily, one of the workers (he looked like a manager) took pity on me, probably seeing the desperation in my eyes and the green Heliae shirt, and majorly helped me out.  He got the order all filled out and sent me over to pay.  I picked up a sandwich for myself (might as well...) and walked over to the cash register.  Snafu #2: my purse is huge, and I was now carrying a menu, a paper with our order on it, my sandwich and cookie, and trying to pay and get drink cups and all.  Again, the nice girl at the cash register took pity and was very helpful.  It was only then that I realized my biggest problem yet: the tea.

Two people wanted iced tea.  Now, my only experience with iced tea has been A) seeing other people drink it, and B) passing it by as an option at the soda fountain.  Snafu #3:  the soda fountain at Paradise Bakery does not have a tea option.  Instead, they have four huge metal canister-looking things with tea in them.  I literally sat and stared at them for a few minutes, totally at a loss.  

"Sure," I thought, "send the only girl who doesn't drink tea to get some for two of our VPs."  

I was about to call my boss and ask her what to do (she drinks iced tea all the time), but I realized that I left my phone sitting on my desk at work.  Great.  I finally just filled some cups with ice (going on a brain wave that iced tea is just normal tea, but with ice--brilliant, I know) and went for the plainest brew I could find and hoped it would work.  I also had a great conversation with someone else at the drink area.

Random Guy: So, you're not getting any of these? [motioning to the soda options]

Me: Nope, I'm not.  I'm getting iced tea, except I don't drink tea and have no idea what I'm doing.

Random Guy: Oh, OK....

Yeah, I pretty much just gave up on looking like a competent adult in any measure.  

In the end, I think everyone got what they wanted (at least I didn't hear any complaints) and I got a delicious Paradise Club sandwich to replace my PB&J.  Oh, and an opportunity to turn in my first ever expense report!  Get excited!

And who says office jobs are boring?

Labor Day Weekend--So Far

Hi people!  Labor Day weekend is only halfway through (ish) and already a lot has happened.  I will attempt to fill you in.

Friday night, most of our family went out to First Friday to visit the Arizona Science Center.  (I love that place!)  We had issues finding a place to eat, so we didn't get to spend a whole lot of time there, but it was an adventure all the same.  I will now show you pictorial evidence of our night.

The Coke machine at Five Guys.  Is this not the coolest drink dispenser ever?

Now I understand why everyone sits at this exhibit and laughs hysterically.

I think we look like pandas.

This is one of my favorite things at the Science Center.  It looses something in picture (versus video) form, but it is still awesome.

I almost had more pictures to take, which brings me to my next story.  As we were walking in downtown Phoenix (is it really downtown?  I have no idea.  It is to me), we saw some statues coming up.  They looked like dancers.  I was just saying to Sarah, "Hey, maybe we should take some pictures with them!" when we got close enough to see that they were all naked.  Yep, a bunch of naked women statues on the sidewalk.  Creepy!  Thanks, Phoenix!  (You can bet we walked down the other side of the street on the way back.  *shudder*)

On the way home from the Science Center, we somehow got on the topic of drinks at Sonic.  My brother-in-law and sister were telling us about some flavors of cream slushes that they really like, so then we were all in the mood to try them (even though we were still really full from dinner--Five Guys gives you a lot of food!).  Behold:

Oceanwater cream slush with cherry add-in

Lime cream slush with blue coconut add-in

Yeah, they look like the same thing (I think the guy taking our order got a little confused...), but they tasted different, I promise.  And they came in shiny silver cups.  Woo!

Yesterday morning, we came to Big Event #2 for the weekend: I got a car!

Isn't it pretty?  I have decided to call it Lucy.  Don't ask me where that came from, because I have no idea.  It's pretty much the same car I've been driving (my mom's is 2 years newer), but blue.  I have broken free of our family's silver Honda tradition!  Ha ha!  It's still a little weird that it's mine (or will be officially once I've paid it off).  I'm super excited, though!

Who knows what the rest of the weekend might bring.  (I have work off tomorrow--huzzah!)  I plan on cleaning out my closet tomorrow--should I be hoping that that is a big adventure or not?  Hmm...

Mousse Hunt

(Wouldn't it be way more awesome if it was this kind of a moose hunt?

Yeah, I thought so, too.  Sorry--it's not.)

So, last week I ran out of mousse.  When I went to Target to get more, I found that not only were they out of the particular brand I wanted, there didn't even seem to be a spot for it.  Hmm...odd.  (It's not like it's a really special brand or anything.)  I was not wanting to go somewhere else, so I just picked something else that I thought would work.  

What I usually use

What I decided to try out

When I was forced to use the new stuff, I quickly found out one important fact: my hair does not like Tresemme.  At all.  It was the worst bad hair day I've had in a really long time.  Ew.

After work that day, I was determined to get more of my mousse--my hair had spoken and I was powerless to resist.  I headed off to Walmart with my mom, thinking: "They've had this every other time I've gone to Walmart.  No problem."  Ha.  Ha.  Remember how I said it was Walmart?  True to form, they were conveniently out of what I wanted.  So, we tried somewhere else.  And somewhere else.  Finally, one Target, one Fry's (neither of which even had a spot for this mousse--but, of course, they had the shampoo and conditioner.  Does anyone else see a problem with this?), and one Walmart Neighborhood Market later, I finally found it.  At the Walmart Neighborhood Market.  (You better believe I bought two--and seriously considered buying them completely out.)  

*sigh* I guess I'll give Walmart partial kudos for that one.  

And in case you were all wondering (and I know you were), my hair is much happier now.  I'd say we can count the hunt as a success!

Welcome to the Space Jam...

In honor of my lovely friend Rhonda's birthday, I will finally post about mine.  Haha.  

So, this year I turned 23.  How did that happen?!?!  I don't feel 23!  When I woke up, I found this outside my bedroom:

 Gotta love those siblings!  There were more hearts and a poster outside on the garage door (and on the steering wheel of the car I drove), but I didn't get a picture before the rain washed them away.  Whoops!

Sadly, I had to go to work.  I guess that made me feel like an actual adult--working on my birthday.  As far as work goes, it actually was a pretty nice day.  I had gone out to lunch the day before, so I didn't do anything fancy for that.  Around 3:00, my mother and sister-in-law showed up at work with a big box of brownies (the Pillsbury ones you get at Sam's Club--my weakness).  It was like the day at school I never got--you know how you always got awesome treats on other people's birthdays in elementary school?  Since mine was in the summer, I had never experienced that first hand.  (Not that I'm complaining--a summer birthday is awesome!)  Let's just say that my cubicle was suddenly very popular...Thanks Mom and Jaimee!

After work, we did the traditional Joe's BBQ/Krispy Kremes run, but family-style this time.  (This is possibly the first year my parents have come along for this--usually it's just me and a sibling or two.)  Want to know something horrible?  Krispy Kremes was out of hats!  I know, scandalous, right?  So, we didn't get to take our traditional eating-a-doughnut-with-the-beautiful-hat-on picture, like this one:

*sniff*

Next year, my friends.

Since my birthday was conveniently on a Friday, I just extended the celebrations over to Saturday.  I had to make up for the 8 or so hours at work, right?  Right.  We had some family time (a.k.a. seeing "Cowboys and Aliens"--not really my first choice...) and that night I had some people over to partake in another time-honored birthday tradition: the watching of a really stupid movie.  Don't ask me why, but this is one of my favorite birthday traditions.  I'm weird.  This year's winner was:

Picture courtesy of Amazon

 Oh yes.  It's stupid, and it has Michael Jordan in it.  (It was my Michael Jordan birthday--#23 and all.)  Perfect!  Again, I forgot to take pictures, so...just take my word on it.  People came.  

Like these ones!

And this one!

And we watched the movie.  And mocked it heartily.  Yep, that about sums it up.

Ooh, ooh, want to see one of the cool presents I got?  (And then I'll be done, I promise.  I forgot to take pictures of all of my other presents--I love them too, though, family and nearly family!)  

It's a holder for my crochet hooks!  And fancy new bamboo hooks!  And it's cute!  I am so excited!  (And such a nerd, I know.)

And so, that was my birthday.  Now I can post about new crochet projects!  Yay! 

Just Call Me "Sparky"

I am currently sitting next to our open door.  Hasn't the weather just been fabulous today?  (At least for us Arizona desert rats--don't worry, a coworker and I have already had this discussion twice.)  I love it.


Moving on.


So, I have a story for all of you!  (I know, get excited.)  First, you need some background:


Background Item #1: A lot of the doors in my office require a key card to unlock.  It's just a little box/number pad thing on the side of the door, you hold your card up to it, and voila!  It opens.


Background Item #2: For some reason, I am always static-y (there's really no good way to spell that) at work.  Whenever I get out of my chair, the first piece of grounded metal I touch will inevitably shock me.  I've just accepted that fact.  Consequently, I have gotten into the habit of tapping the metal wall of my cubicle with my forearm every time I leave it.  (Why my forearm, you ask?  Because zapping your fingers every time hurts.  I have learned by experience.)  I realized the other day that it makes me feel like a clownfish--my cubicle is my anemone, making me immune to other shocks.  (Yeah, so my only knowledge of this subject comes from "Finding Nemo"--don't judge.)  Now back to the story already in progress...


So, last Wednesday it was pretty quiet at the office.  A lot of the actual office people were gone at some big meeting, so it was just me and a select few there.  I decided that I needed to go back to the lab to ask someone a question.  So, I left my cubicle {critical mistake #1: I did not tap} and headed on back.  When I got to the key pad, I committed {critical mistake #2: I actually touched my card to the box.}  Guess what happened?


A huge spark shot out from me (I'm assuming--weird) straight through my card and to the box.  Instead of blinking green and unlocking the door, the little box made a weird noise, the light turned red, and it didn't unlock.  My initial thought: "Maybe it was just a fluke.  Let's just try it again."  I tried it again.  "Hmm...nope, not a fluke.  Well, crap, I think I shorted out my card!"


After standing there for a minute deciding just how dumb I wanted/was going to look, I finally turned to the guys next to me and said, "Umm, can one of you open the door for me?  I think I broke my card..."  One guy tried it--it still didn't work.  Another tried his card--didn't work for him either.  (Now I'm thinking "I broke the door, not my card!!")  So, we frantically set about to find a manual or something that would get the stupid thing to work again.  Enter Miss T (as I will call her), the office manager and One Who Knows Everything (or just about).  She called our cable/electrical guy and told him the problem.  Here is pretty much the conversation that I heard:


"Hey, [person], we have a bit of an emergency here.  The doors aren't working and the only thing we can correlate it with is that Jenny was walking around and had a bit of static and she kind-of shocked the box.  {Bless her, she wasn't blaming me outright.}  Can you come and fix it?"


Meanwhile, we found out that not only was the main lab door not working, but all doors locked with this box were not working--even the ones outside our building (on the gates).  Sheesh!  Luckily, our guy was just finishing up another job and got over to us pretty quickly.  While he was working, I made signs for the doors ("Currently out of order--use another one instead") and had to keep telling people what was going on ("Um, I had a build-up of static electricity and when I touched the box it shocked it and stopped working.")  Yeah, good times.  I got razzed and told that I needed to attach a grounding wire to my pant leg.  Haha.  Actually, I really was laughing because it was ridiculously funny (even though I felt totally guilty).  He got it all fixed pretty quickly--like 15 minutes or so--and everything was back to normal.


As he was leaving, I just had to ask: "Did I really break all the doors?"


Mr. Fix-It: Well, it was some sort of static...something.  I don't really know what it was.


Me: I DID break all the doors!


MFI: It looked like kind-of a freak thing.  Like the sort of thing you couldn't do again if you tried.


Miss T: Oh, don't tell her that, that's a challenge!


I guess it's one way to break the ice with a new office full of people....

Weeds of DEATH!

Once upon a time, there lived two fair maidens.  Their cottage was surrounded by a beautiful garden.  One spring morning, the older maiden realized that the garden was not growing as it should.


"Oh no," she told the younger maiden, "the dreadful frost of winter has brought an evil into the shrubbery.  I can hear it whispering its wicked intent to overrun our home.  We must do something!"

The maidens donned their protective clothing, gathered their tools, and set out to put the garden to rights.  As they left the cottage, they met a kind Hedgehog outside their door.


"Allow me to assist you, fair maidens," the Hedgehog said.


"The Hedgehog's sharp spines will make the work go by much quicker!" thought the maidens.  Cheered by this happy coincidence, the maidens entered the garden and got to work.  They plucked out dead branches and leaves with delight and pruned the new growth with their shears.


When the younger maiden was beset with ants, they ran to the good wizard Google to help solve their problem.  "Sprinkle the ants with cinnamon," Google advised, "and they will leave you alone."

Some cinnamon was quickly found, and the maidens did as they were told.  What a pleasant smell filled the garden as they continued to work!


After a short break, the maidens returned to their work, certain that the task was nearly finished.  It was then that the maidens realized the immensity of the problem before them.  They peered at the bushes on the other side of the garden and saw...

The Weeds of Death!

They were hideous!

They were filled with sharp thorns!




"Do not fear, maidens," soothed the Hedgehog.  "I will protect you from these instruments of evil!"


With the help of the Hedgehog, the maidens battled the villainous flora all through the morning.  When the sun was high in the sky, the trio stepped back to admire their victory.


"Is this...[head tilt]...better?"

"It is for today!" the older maiden cried.


The maidens thanked the Hedgehog most graciously for his help and returned to their cottage, confident that the Weeds of Death had been driven back...at least for a time.

Wedding Week

Hey all!


I realize that I haven't updated in a while (despite promising to do otherwise...).  Sorry about that!  It's been a little crazy at my house lately.  Here's what went down last week:


Monday

• Work
• Helped Mom with piano group lessons
• Eva (sister-in-law) and nephews came in from Ohio

Tuesday

• Work
• Hospital
• Helped Mom with more group lessons
• Turned pages and played a duet at Mesa High's choir concert
• Breathed a little {just a little, mind you}

Wednesday-Saturday

• Worked extensively on making wedding food/watching children while Eva made wedding food {except for Wednesday, I think we stayed up until about 1:30 or 2:00 each night}
• Clayton (brother) got in from Ohio Friday afternoon {instead of Thursday--gotta love those flight delays!}

Saturday

• Seth (my brother) and Jaimee got married!!!

This, my friends, is the real reason for all of the craziness.  Not only was our family in charge of the luncheon (you know, groom's duties and all), but Awesome Chef Eva made all of the food for the reception.  And I do mean all--wedding cake, sheet cakes, pasta, appetizers, etc.  (OK, so she didn't make the cheese and/or crackers from scratch, but you get the idea.)  Notice how she got in on Monday night?  Yeah, we're only slightly crazy.  But, everything turned out in the end, with the help of an army of family members and friends.  Lots of people really like us, it turns out.  

Of course, summing everything up like this means that you're missing out on some of the best stories.  (You all know how much I like my stories!)  But, there's simply not enough time to write them all out.  So, if anyone is curious, the next time you see me ask me about blow-drying strawberries and warm potato salad.  And possibly flavored popcorn (although that will require video and may not be as fun for you as it was for me--just sayin').  

Up next: Adventures in Algae!

"In a New York minute....oohweeooh...."

Last Tuesday, I woke up with a plan for my day that looked pretty much like every other Tuesday.

The Plan

7:00--Wake up, shower, eat breakfast

8:45--Leave for work

9:00--Arrive at work and get down to business

11:00--Stop working, eat lunch, switch into my awesome volunteer smock, and head off to the hospital

12:00--Arrive at the hospital and help people (while having fabulous conversations with my desk-mate, of course)

4:00--Leave the hospital for home

4:15-ish--Be home and...well, that's pretty much what the plan was (except for Jenny/Kailei night, of course).

As you probably suspect, my actual plan went nothing like that.  Instead:

The Reality

7:00--Alarm goes off

7:30--Actually get out of bed

8:38--Check my phone and see that an unknown number called me and left a message while I was in the shower.  Listen to the voicemail and find out that it's from a staffing agency saying they found my resume on ASU's Career Link and they think I would be great for a position they're trying to fill.  {OK, random, but not a bad random.}

8:42--Call back the message-leaver, get some info, and agree to meet for an interview later that afternoon.  {You know, no biggie.  It's not like I already have a job or anythi---wait a second...}

8:52--Try to eat breakfast while simultaneously getting references together, e-mailing my boss to tell him what's going on, e-mailing my supervisor at the hospital asking to leave early, updating my resume, and calling my dad saying "What am I supposed to be doing right now?"

10:00--Decide there's no way I'm making it in to work, call in, and continue preparing until it's time to leave for the hospital.

12:10--Arrive at the help desk and find out that my desk-mate's kids are sick, ergo she will not be coming in. Find out that it's just going to be me for the next 3 1/2 hours and my book is at home.  Start panicking...

Several prayers and about 1 1/2 hours later--Stop panicking.  Deal with today's taxi craziness and general everyday busyness that is the front desk.  Make a few really stupid comments (such as asking someone coming in looking for a patient what department the person in question worked in), but overall help people.

3:40--Leave the hospital, put gas in the car, drive to interview.

4:25--Arrive at interview (on time!), fill out paperwork, and have a really nice chat with my (now) good friend Matt.

6:00-ish--Arrive at home

Later--Call my boss to tell him what's going on {and that I'm really not trying to ditch him...}

After later--Decide I'm really sick of calling, e-mailing, and texting people.

OK, that last bit sounds really ungrateful.  This was an amazing opportunity that just fell into my lap--the position they're looking to fill is an administrative position at a biofuel engineering company (pretty much an excellent combination of my work experience--small as it is--and education).  Right now it's just temporary, but there's a possibility that it would become permanent.  After the first interview, my information was passed on to the actual company looking to hire and I had an interview with them this afternoon.  It went pretty well--the people were nice and I didn't say too many dumb things (hopefully...).  I'll definitely keep you all posted. :)

40-Hour Celebration!

So...tired....

I did at least 7 flower deliveries at the hospital today (I think it may have been a bit closer to 10, actually) and went back and forth from the C-wing to the D-wing (opposite sides of the hospital) at least twice.  It was crazy busy!  At least I'm getting my exercise in!  Oh, and remember how I found our supply chain management office one day?  Every single week since, at least one vendor has come in looking for it.  I even learned a new way to get there that is way less complicated.  Whenever a vendor comes in looking lost and needing a badge, Eva (the girl I work with now) just looks at me and I jump up and take them.  I think I've found my niche!

I think my favorite delivery of the day was to a lady whose parents (I'm assuming--maybe not) were in the room with her.  I walked in, said "I have some flowers for you..." and realized that there were already at least 2 other flower arrangements (one of which was HUGE!) and various other gifts sitting all over.  So I changed to "Well, I guess I have more flowers for you."  Haha.  Then there's always the slightly awkward moment when they're looking at the card and you're leaving and wondering "Should I be saying something to them?"  (Saying "Have a nice day!" always feels weird when they're lying in a bed in the hospital.)  As I was backing out, the father figure guy in the room caught my attention and said "God bless you, young lady!"  It was such a nice thing to hear.

The funny thing about walking around with a cart full of flower arrangements is people comment on them.  And of course, me being me, I have no idea what to say.  

Typical conversation in the halls en-route:

Random Person: Wow, those flowers are beautiful!

Me: Yep, they are. [I can't really say "Thanks, I know!" because I in no way contributed to these flowers being beautiful.  They're not even being delivered to me, so I can't take any credit there.]

RP: And they smell so nice too!

Me: Yeah, they do.

[silence]

Yep, that's about how it goes.  Haha.  I directed and delivered some people around, too.  (In a wheelchair, not the cart.)  I think I've definitely earned my sleep tonight!

Oh yeah--I have officially logged 42 hours and 8 minutes now!  This means that I can switch around and volunteer in other places (i.e. the lab).  I may have to just go in on a different day, though--I don't want to leave the shift I have now!  I'm getting a bit attached...

To Boldy Go Where No Volunteer Has Gone Before

...or at least, I hadn't been there.

Today a lady came in to the hospital wanting to know where some classrooms were.  No one really knew where to find them, so I offered to go with her to search for them.  Before we could start that search, though, we needed to go to purchasing.  (I didn't even know we had a purchasing department/office/whatever!  Does this scream "adventure!" to anyone else?  Just me, huh?)  So, off we went to try to find purchasing.  

We passed:

• The cafeteria
• Cardon's lobby (where we asked for directions)
• Several electrical/mechanical closets
• The morgue (kind-of creepy to be walking down a hallway and see a door that just says "Morgue."  Oh, no big deal...)
• The mail room
• Several storage rooms
• A drinking fountain
• The purchasing department (it's actually called "Supply Chain Management"--who knew?)
• And walked into what looked like an indoor loading dock, where someone found us and took us back to the right door.

I was all ready to find some classrooms, too, but other people from the lady's group (including the guy who was giving the presentation she was going to) showed up, so they trekked it together.  Luckily, I'm slightly OCD and I found my way back without any trouble.  (I'm one of those kids that had to turn in a circle counterclockwise if I'd just turned clockwise.) 

I do love my adventures.

"Would you like some bread crumbs?"

Today was my first day volunteering at the hospital.  It was a little crazy at first, but ultimately AWESOME!  I got some training first, which took a whole, oh, 10 minutes, and then they kind-of just let me loose.  Well, not completely--there were 3 other people there.  (I'm at the main entrance information desk.)  The first few people that I "helped" were probably really sad that they walked up to me.  This was how most of those conversations went:

Visitor: I'm looking for this person.

Me: Oh, ok, let me look....uh, they're not here, let me look here (I think...)...um, [turning to my fellow front desk person] where should they be going?

Yeah, I was very helpful.  You learn a lot in 4 hours, though.  I even had someone say how helpful and knowledgeable I was somewhere around hour 3.5.  Ha!  Not bad for my first day!  (Yeah, I think I laughed when they said that.)  The best part, though?  The feeling you get when you leave and think that you've just helped people for 4 hours, and it wasn't even that hard.  How awesome is that?!

And now, I get to go see "Tangled" again with Kailei!  Hooray for Kailei/Jenny Tuesdays!

Oh, in case anyone actually read the title of this post and wants to know what it's about, it's from my first (and only, for today) flower delivery.  I had the room number, but wasn't exactly sure where I was going (it was in the first hour or so).  The guy working with me said "I think I have some bread crumbs, if you need them to find your way back."  Yeah, sure, pick on the newbie...

Trial and Error

A few weeks ago, I was hungry and feeling slightly vegetable-deprived, so I decided to give this a go:

Doesn't it look inviting?  And...healthy?

My opinion of V-8: Disgusting.  

(No offense to those of you who like it.)

I could only drink about 1/3 of it before I gave up and had to eat a mellowcreme pumpkin to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. 

Just in case any of you were wondering about my feelings on the subject.

Another Fond Farewell

I've been trying to decide how to update this thing.  Should I do one huge post, or a bunch of little ones?  Since my posts tend to be ridiculously long even when they're current, I'm going to change it up a bit.

Story of October that I meant to blog about forever ago #1: My Black Shoes

I have a pair of black flats that I've really loved.  They were cute!  And fancy-looking!  (Hooray for patent leather!)  But, as you can see, they were looking a little....sad.

I was determined to keep these shoes as long as possible.  Then, one day, I noticed that they felt a little lopsided...hmm...

Why yes, that is a chair pad on the bottom of my shoe.

The actual heel came off somehow (beats me), so I tried to replace it.  My dad suggested the above solution, but it wasn't quite the same.  So, I had to say good-bye to my beautiful shoes.  *tear*

Don't worry, I've already found new ones to love. :)

Paperbound Torture

So, I just finished reading this book this evening:

Thanks for the picture Barnes and Noble!

Holy cow.  Ok, before I get into this, I probably should let you know: I LOVE the Percy Jackson books.  In fact, I have them all sitting on my shelf.  I think they're awesome.  Naturally, anything by Rick Riordan is going to be on my list to read.  The aforementioned tome is a new series in the same setting as Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  

So, what did I do when it came out last Tuesday?

Went right to the store and bought it, naturally.  Who cares that I was in the middle of another book or two?

Oh man.  As I got to the end of this book, I literally felt my blood pressure rising as I got closer to the end and realized: yeah, you know that nice tidy ending you wanted?  It's not coming.  This is definitely the beginning of a series.  

Aaargggh!!  

I'm beginning to think I get a bit too attached to these fictional characters.  Guess what I'm going to be dreaming about tonight and thinking about for the next week?

Next fall can't come fast enough.  Stinkin' series...

Labor Day, Seattle Style: Part 2

Ok, let's hope Blogger likes me again.

Saturday continued
After the Japanese garden, we headed off to the Seattle Space Needle.  We didn't really spend much time there, for a number of reasons.  (Big huge paid-admission-required art/music festival at the bottom, lots of people, $20 to go to the top of the needle, you know.)  But, we saw it and went into the gift shop.  That counts, right?   

After the hubbub down there, we headed off to find some grub.  Using Sarah's phone, we found a cafe nearby that was supposedly cheap and friendly.  Being the innocent child I am, I took the description of "atmosphere: offbeat" as "atmosphere: quirky and fun."  Yeah, turns out it actually meant "dark, smoky, and lots of neon beer signs in the windows."  So, we bypassed that lovely little gem, as well as a few really expensive-looking restaurants, and ended up at Zeeks pizza.  Mmm...Zeeks.  

Waiting for our waiter to return...

Chop salad

Frog Belly Green pizza

One nearly-exploding (with goodness) stomach later, we walked all the way back to our car (which we had to pay $15 to park, by the way.  Thank you Seattle...), we found out that the glass-blowing studio we wanted to go to (which was FREE) was back by Zeeks.  I was really not feeling up to either searching for a parking spot on the street or walking back over there, so we just went back to the hotel.  Thankfully, we were moved to a different smoking room that was almost in the non-smoking section and the staff had put in non-smoking bedding.  For causing them so much grief, they really did try to take care of us.  Of course, room #3 didn't have a refrigerator or a microwave, but hey, at least it didn't make me want to puke.  I'll take what I can get.


Oh yeah, I almost forgot--once in room #3, Sarah realized that she didn't have the wall charger for her phone in our stuff and that it was most likely in room #2.  I went back to the lobby to see if they had found it: no dice.  Because of this, we were trying to save her phone battery (our link to the world wide web) and had no choice but to use the computer in the lobby.  (Really, I think the staff was sick of us.  It seemed like we complained a lot.  They definitely knew what room number we were in without us having to tell them.)  After some research, we found a $3 movie theater not too far away.  Hello Saturday night activity!

Thanks for the picture Disney!

The only problem: we weren't hungry enough for dinner before the movie but knew we would be by the middle.  Solution: popcorn, of course.  But, sadly, a small popcorn at this cheap theater cost....$6.  So, in essence, we paid $6 a piece for the movie, instead of $3.  Lame.  But at least the movie was decent.  (I'm a fan of Jay Baruchel--I think he's funny.)


Sunday
Sarah wanted to go to 9:00 church.  Ugh.  But, being the good sister I am, I got up super early and was ready to go on time.  We just happened to go to the same ward that my cousin is serving his mission in...

Don't mind the fact that 2 of the 3 people in this picture are blinking.

The look on his face when we walked in was priceless.  The ward was really friendly and people really tried to help us feel welcome.  Yay for The Church!  I even got to fulfill my calling a few states away and played in Relief Society.  (One of the sisters in the presidency asked if I could stay forever.  Haha.  She was cute.)  After church, we hopped back aboard George and went to: 

If you look really closely, you can see us at the bottom.  The temple was quite large.

It was really pretty.  They had flowers and stuff, but the sheer amount of green there (and the cloudy skies) was beautiful for a desert rat like me.  Like this:

This is what I called the backyard of the temple.  Just a nice little forest, sitting there minding its own business.  Seriously?  A forest?  And it was on all sides, not just in the back.  How cool is that?!

After dinner (it felt so weird to be going to an Applebee's on a Sunday...), we headed back to the hotel because we were feeling tired.  I think the plan was to take a nap.  Did we take a nap, though?  No.  We looked up a few scriptures our mom suggested to us (gotta love that momma), did some word searches together (aww, sisterly love), and...sat there.  For FIVE hours!  We did turn the TV on, but our best choice was "Facing the Giants."  Now, don't get offended.  There's nothing wrong with that movie.  Heck, it was even Sunday appropriate, in my book.  But, it's pretty heavy on the cheese.  And when you've already been stuck in a very small hotel room for 3 hours, it doesn't quite cut it.


Why didn't we go explore a little, you ask?  Well, as I mentioned before, I think we planned on the nap thing.  But, when that didn't happen, we couldn't really think of anyplace free and Sunday-like that we wanted to go.  And, to be honest, we were a little sick of getting lost and missing turns.  Seriously, the state of Washington needs to rethink it's highway and road system.  I have never seen so many retarded forked roads in my life!  And the street signs were tiny!  Look at this:

This is what we had to deal with.  When you don't really know where you're going in the first place, this does not help.


We tried a visit to the ice machine to relieve the boredom, but sadly, we were foiled.

Don't I look sad?  The sign says the machine is broken and you have to go to the front desk to get some ice.  Yeah right!  Those people were sick enough of us as it was.  No use pushing it.

So, we resorted to taking pictures of each other.  As you can probably guess, none of them are very flattering.  I'll spare you the horror.


Monday
We decided to dedicate all of our available time on Monday to Pike's Place Market.  That place was crazy!  There were shops and stalls everywhere.  Oh yeah, and tons of people.  There were 3 levels to the marketplace, too.  We started out mostly wandering, but when I tried a sample of this I was such a sucker I had to buy it:

It probably helped that the guy giving me the sample was fun to talk to.  I should have gotten a picture with him.  Another guy that we should have gotten a picture of is our good friend David.  He was the shopkeeper in a little bookshop on the second-ish level of the market (it gets a little confusing down there).  When a new customer came in, he would say hi, ask where they were from, and then sing out "Oh, you came all the way from [location] to see me!  You're a bookstore groupie!"  Yeah, he was pretty much my favorite part of the market.  The shop was fun, too--new books next to old, tatty ones and everything kind-of stuck on the shelves haphazardly (I mean there were sections and all, but they weren't in neat little stacks).  Normally that would drive me nuts, but it worked there.  We bought something from him, too, but after we had wandered through the rest of the market trying to find cheaper playing cards to no avail.  (After Sunday's boredom, we wanted to be prepared for a long wait at the airport.)  That's ok--I'd like to think the $6 we played for a deck of (European) playing cards was like a little tip to David for being cool.


Some other highlights of Pike's: 
1) We saw our cousin and his companion again.  When we caught his attention, he said "You guys are everywhere!  What are you doing?"  Haha.  After assuring him that we were not stalking him ("No, really, we're not."), we went off to see other things. 

2) Me and Rachel, the pig of Pike's Place.

3) Our lunch.  

Rachel's All-American Sandwich.  Pretty much awesome.  Do you see the bacon on that thing?  Mmm...bacon.

We saw a ton of people eating this stuff and decided that we might as well jump on the bandwagon.  Holy cow, it was good, but I could almost hear my arteries screaming in protest.  So...much...cheese...

4) The bathrooms.  This may sound weird, but they were funny.  Here's how you know you're in the women's bathroom.

For obvious reasons, I didn't get a picture of the big XY marking the men's bathroom.


After Pike's, we headed off to return our car (goodbye George!  You served us well!) and get down to the airport.  It was probably a good thing we got there nearly 2 1/2 hours early because Sarah's ticket somehow got cancelled, a fact we learned when she couldn't check in to the flight.  Thank goodness they got it fixed pretty quickly and we were on the same flight home.  (At first, the lady said, "Now, I couldn't get you two together because the flight is pretty full..." and we interrupted with "Wait, so we're not on the same flight?!"  Turns out she just meant we weren't sitting together, but we would be on the same plane.  Phew.)


And so, we made it home alive!  (If any of you are still reading this absurdly long post, you deserve a candy bar.  Don't worry, I can wait while you go find one.)  Despite the problems we had and the fact that I'm not very good with spontaneous changes of plans, I'm glad I got to go.  Amazingly, except for a few minutes near the very end, we really got along well.  Who'd'a thunk: my sister and I can survive in close quarters for 4 days without killing each other!  Haha, j/k.  It was an amazing experience, though.  Thanks for the ticket parents!  And thanks for taking me Sarah!  Mom was right: this one is definitely going down in the family lore.

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