It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I love the start of Christmas season. The air is crisp (and sometimes downright cold), the leaves are all changing in the trees, and the holiday lights and decor is going up around the town. Yesterday, I was preparing to cross the street from the bus tunnel, and I noticed the finer details on Santa's headquarters at Nordstrom -- including fake snow on the eaves of the temporary sidewalk HQ. I love it! And today, oh today, I noticed that the Nutcrackers have invaded the downtown sidewalks.... I love it! (Check out the Nutcrackers online.)

One week left until I get to put the tree up and trim the house festively! Yippeee! Time seems to have gotten away from me (where did this year go?), but I'm excited about the start of the holiday season. Bring it on!

Weekend Wanderings

Early this weekend, Lennie and I outlined a plan of action, including items like paint the bathrooms, do laundry, get new cell phones, finish our wedding album order, try a new church event, and go to the gym. I'm pleased to report that we have completed most of these tasks... we just didn't make it to the gym, big surprise. I'm exhausted as I type this, but I'm pleased that we we got as much accomplished this weekend as we had set out to do.

I "heart" Costco. Earlier this week, we stopped by the T-Mobile store in search of our new cell phones. After an unsuccessful high pressure sales incident, we left without any new phones to "think about" our options. We both fell in love with the new Blackberry Pearl phones, and decided to purchase them this weekend for the sale price of $149 each at the T-Mobile store. On a lark, we stopped at Costco just before going back to the T-Mobile store. It's a good thing that we did, too! Membership truly has it's priviledges with Costco, as we purchased the identical T-Mobile phones for $30 each, plus our activation fees were waived and we were able to sign up for our two-year plans on the spot. In total, I think that Costco saved us $300 this weekend on our new cell phones. Costco, I love you!

Perhaps on another post, I'll tell you why November 14th will be my last day with Sprint. I'm still too angry with them today to even vent about it on my blog right now... argh! Darn lack of customer service!

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. The bathrooms need another coat of paint, but that was to be expected. They look really good though, if I do say so myself!

Staple, Staple, Staple!

Okay, so I'm really not a fan of Jack in the Box. In fact, I haven't eaten at a Jack in the Box willingly since the Seattle-area e coli outbreak nearly 15 years ago. That's half my lifetime, friends, so as you can see, I'm not a fan.

However, lately their marketing has permeated my brain. As I was stapling a document at work yesterday, I found myself thinking "Staple! Staple! Staple!" (Get out of my brain, Jack! Get out!) Just like the cheerleader in the commercial. So, I must share this great work of marketing magic with all of you:



"Copy, copy, copy...." oy vey!

Where Has the Time Gone?

Well, we set our clocks back this weekend, and I feel like time has just been whizzing by me. Autumn is definitely here, the air is crisp, the leaves on the trees have turned into beautiful shades of yellow, orange, and red. I love and hate this time of year all at the same time. I love it because things are changing, and something new is ahead of us. However, gone are the days of walking out of the house in a t-shirt and jeans, and the scarves are starting to get pulled out of the closet. What fun: welcome autumn and winter!

I was at my all-time favorite store, Target, the other day and I took a stroll through the Christmas section. Unlike usual, I was very excited to be walking through the aisles of holiday schwag. Christmas is right around the corner, and I can't wait to break into our holiday supplies and put the Christmas tree... it's taking everything I have to not put it up before Thanksgiving. After all, it is against some sort of rule to have your Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving dinner, right? Heh... I may have to test that rule this year!

More Wedding Fun!

One of the best things about the time after the wedding is that we have been slowly getting photos from the guests. The latest set is now available online for you to enjoy -- thank you Aunt Anita! :-)

Silly Huskies!

I'm becoming a disillusioned Husky fan. I've gone from calling it a rebuilding year (for the past four years) to a rebuilding era. After the Arizona game, though, I have to say that I'm starting to question my loyalty to this year's team. I'm a tried-and-true fan, sure, but I'm also feeling pretty fair weather right now too. However, I think that Steve Kelley of the Seattle Times expressed it best in his article "Changes are Needed:"

The age of forgiveness is over. It ended late Saturday afternoon. Ended after Washington blew a 15-point fourth-quarter lead — to Arizona.

It ended when the defense allowed 535 yards and the offense committed five turnovers. Ended with a 48-41 loss.

Last week, Washington coach Tyrone Willingham speculated that none of his players could start for USC. And then those players went out and proved him right.

Turns out the Huskies don't even have the talent to beat Arizona.

"Obviously there are a lot of people who don't feel very good about who we are right now," Willingham said after the game.

This was a 24-karat embarrassment. Washington was outscored 22-6 in the fourth quarter. Last week, Oregon outscored the Huskies 24-3 in the fourth. Read more of the article here.

Now Hear This! :-)

I thought that I would put the world on notice: last week was a challenging and funky week for me. Tears may have been shed, frustration may have been vented, but it's all behind me now. It's history. Time to move on.

So, here's my pronouncement: This week, my friends, is going to be a great week. I'm going in with a new attitude and I'm willing it to be, nay, making it, a great week.

So, who's with me? Let's go and have a fabulous week!

Where's the Wind?

So, this morning, the news media made it sound like we were going to be having an big wind storm this afternoon... complete with monumental power outages and a need for an in-home survival kit. Aside from some creaking and yawing in my office building today, I'm waiting for the epic storm. Did I simply blink at the wrong time and miss the storm? Or have my standards been raised after last year's actual epic windstorm, power outage, and cold? I dunno... but I do know that we can put the MREs back in the cupboard, the storm has passed for now, I think.

Bummer, I was kind of looking forward to a good storm this evening...

More Wedding Photos!

I'm very pleased to report that we have received the photos from our wedding photographers. I couldn't have asked for better photos! If you'd like to take a look, you can access them online at www.pictage.com. Just search for us when prompted. Enjoy! :-)

Lunch With Kool & the Gang

So, I work downtown, and today I was fortunate enough to hear the musical stylings of Kool and the Gang at lunch. Actually, that's a little inaccurate: I was treated to their musical stylings (and sound checks) from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in my office on the 16th floor. You see, in celebration of the grand opening of the new Sheraton Seattle tower, Kool and the Gang played the valet driveway of the Sheraton, and we could hear it all the way up in our offices. We did go down for a few songs so that we could see them "live." What fun!