Snow, redux

We are being covered by snow...again. I cannot even begin to explain how much I hate snow by now. We have had so much this winter, and the first couple days are always charming. You sit inside with your cup of tea and look outside at the white blanket that covers your yard. Life slows down a little bit and you get some things done around the house, because there's really no use in going out and either getting stuck in the snow yourself, or watching other dingbats get stuck. By about day three, it's starting to get old and you get cabin fever. Any longer than that, and you'd better have a significant other who is capable of driving in the snow and likewise has a dependable vehicle for driving in the snow.

Didn't anyone tell the weather system that this is Seattle? Move along now... The weather report shows that this is supposed to subside later today, so hopefully that's true and it won't be sticking around. With L. in Brazil, I am without a snow chauffer today and I have a hair appointment this evening that I simply cannot miss or I'm going to go all Britney on my hair. You know, not because my life is a mess, but because I feel like I have a mop on my head and have lost the ability to do anything meaningful with it by now.

I feel like I'm repeating myself

Probably because I actually am, in a way. I'm either still sick or sick again. I'm not really sure which it is. See, the flu/cold thing that was going on the last couple of weeks never entirely went away. I've had a sore throat in some form for almost two weeks now, whether it be the feeling of having had razor blades run down my throat or just annoying irritation from post nasal drip. Things were definitely looking up until late last night/earlier today. So far, I've heard from several people who have been dealing with a similar thing, so I know I just need to let it run its course. But my gawd this is annoying as hell. I'd like to resume some kind of normal existence. And waking up early this morning with a totally stuffed head and sore throat again was certainly not charming. I've got to avoid antibiotics at all costs, though, because I'm running out of ones that don't cause an allergic reaction and I'm only 30 years old. If I want to make it to 90 like my grandfather is (this year in fact), I can't be running out of antibiotic options when it really matters. So, suffer through this I will!

I garnered up enough energy to throw on some sweat pants and head to Fred Meyers to pick up some more cold medicine, crackers, and ginger ale this afternoon, since I've depleted my supplies and honestly wasn't expecting to get sick again right away. I'm sure I looked really great running around the store like a zombie, but I found my stuff and checked out. Normally this is the kind of thing that L. would do for me, but Brazil is pretty far away from the Fred Meyers and our house. But I'm all set now and ready to curl up in my blanket and try to get my dog to understand that mama has no energy to chase him around the house with his toys tonight.

Valentine's Day Weekend

L. and I celebrated our first married Valentine's Day on Saturday night. It was a little bit of a hectic weekend because we were also getting L. ready for his business trip to Brazil, but more about that later. First the Valentine's Day celebration.

On Saturday, we both slept in a bit, since I had been sick all last week and L. was not fully sick but was fighting a little something. We got up, and I gave L. his Valentine's Day presents. I got him several books about his favorite subject, music. I also got him a really cool archive of Rolling Stone magazines on DVDs - all 40 years worth. Oli got his daddy lots of good treats for the plane and hotel room.

I then took some extra time to get ready for L.'s surprise. I knew that I needed to get dressed up, but I wasn't sure what for. I found a cute black dress and accessorized with a cute bag, shoes, and wrap for the night. I did up my makeup and then we headed out to the surprise location, during which L. gave me a gift - the movie Ratatouille, which is one of my favorites. It was sort of a clue of what was to come, which was a phenomenal dinner.

As we headed into downtown Seattle, I could only guess at where we were going because there are so many great places to eat downtown. We stopped in front of El Gaucho, and I suddenly got excited to try some steak. L. knows that my alltime favorite steak is at the Met, and I've heard that El Gaucho rivals the Met as far as steaks. We got inside and headed downstairs to a beautiful room with candlelit tables and a live jazz band. We waited for a few minutes to be seated, so we danced a fox trot and a swing dance to the live music along with some other guests. We were then seated and had a moment to drool over the menu. I chose a Frenched Rib Chop and L. chose a Baseball cut sirloin with lobster, and we shared their mashed potatoes and asparagus. The whole meal was delicious, and was followed up with a fruit, cheese, and cracker course, and then dessert. I had creme brulee, while L. did a wonderful cheesecake with strawberry coulis. The whole thing was incredible, and just as I thought our night was drawing to a close, L. placed a small box in front of me on the table. I opened it up to find a beautiful pair of small white gold loop earrings with diamonds. I immediately went to the restroom to put them in where I had a bit better light. They are georgous and were a total surprise. I've never even seen these before, and somehow L. just knew that they would be perfect for me. They will be great for both everyday wear and for more dressed up events.

Yesterday was busy as we worked to get L. ready for Brazil. I was working on getting an old laptop ready for him to take so that we could use Live Messenger and Skype to communicate while he was down there, since his work computer is locked down by their system admins and we couldn't connect it to the Internet. Just as I got everything done and we were playing around with the software, L. started checking some emails and such and a virus popped up. It turned out to be a particularly awful virus, which I just didn't have enough time to deal with last night, so he left without the computer after all. I was going to rebuild it anyway when he got back, so now I'll just work on doing that while he's away instead. It was so frustrating though. We're hoping that when he gets to Brazil, he can work with the IT guys down there to open up his computer a little bit to allow it to connect to the hotel Internet and do Skype and Messenger at least. We'll see how that goes. If not, it will be just regular old talking on the telephone!

Mad, mad, mad world

You know, the more I watch the news lately, the more I think that the world has just plain gone mad. There is no more personal accountability, let alone accountability in the highest positions in our country.

I mean, look at the bailouts. Money for organizations that refuse to disclose information like how much money went to whom. And then we get information about these same organizations planning lavish affairs, golden parachutes for CEOs, and bonuses for everyone. What the hell? This at the same time that many people have faced or are facing layoffs and scale backs the likes of which we've not seen for a long time.

Then we have this village idiot who decided to have 8 kids on top of her existing 6 kids. And despite the fact that she said she does not receive welfare, it appears that she receives approximately $1900/month in federal funds and $490/month in food stamps. That was for the existing 6 kids, three of which are disabled. Not to mention that the birth of her new brood of 8 will likely cost one million dollars by the time the babies go home. I'm sorry, but f&*@(! that. If you have the money to pay for your own kids, that's one thing. But if you already receive aid for 6 of them, perhaps you should hang up your uterus and call it a day. If you're on welfare, then no more kids. Take care of the ones you already have and leave it at that. If you had plans for a big family, then figure out how to finance that yourself. I cannot even fathom the kind of person who would actually think that this woman would be a responsible parent for 14 children.

Peanut Corp. of America? If you see salmonella come back in your tests, perhaps you should pull the product and not poison people around the country. Shame on you. And the worst part is that I'm sure there are plenty of other food supply companies around the country who have similar practices and conditions in their facilities. How many more things do we have to be worried about in our pantries?

It's just crazy. Here's the thing. I'm a proud democrat, and I'm proud to pay taxes for things that are important for our communities and country to run smoothly. I want my police, fire department, roads, health care, welfare, etc. to be there for people who legitimately need it. And the fact that we have corporate welfare going on now is just insidious. What about the rest of us out here? I realize that we need to keep our industries going, but some of this is just ridiculous. And even though I support welfare programs, I would sure like to see a lot more accountability go into these programs to help people get off of welfare in a better way, and cut back or end help for people who abuse it like that crazy octuplet mom.

Life update

It's time for another life update, because I find that I just can't keep track of who I've told what to these days.

First, I'm all off of the antidepressants, and so far it's going well. I met with my counselor last week and we had a good discussion about it all. I think that mentally I'm in a pretty good place right now, and after the initial side effects of going off of the medications, I was doing better until...

...the latest health problem has just been this horrible cold, which is the worst I have had in a long time. I think part of the problem is that I was on prednisone (twice) for the allergic reaction I had to antibiotics, so my immune system was way down due to that. So, there was no combatting the germs going around in my office, and now it's just taking me a long time to actually get better. It's so frustrating. Sometimes I wonder how I'm actually supposed to keep going with the weight loss when all of these health problems keep coming up over and over again. The combination of prednisone, plus rash, plus cold has resulted in so little activity over the last few months that I'm going to have to work really hard to even get back to where I was after finishing the 20/20 program. I lost a total of 46 pounds at that time. From what I could tell last time I weighed in, I'd maintained 32 pounds of that. Baaa! It takes so little time for something to upset the apple cart. But my main desire right now would be to just get my immune system back up and running a bit, and work some more activity into my life. We bought a nice elliptical machine and it was delivered last week right as I got so sick. And next month I plan to get a small set of dumbells and free weights to do some things at my house.

Oli is doing well and learning a lot. He had his last round of puppy shots last week and his first haircut (of which I posted pictures). Unfortunately, he still has the giardia infection going on, so we're trying a different medicine for him. It's hard to tell whether he got rid of the infection and just got infected again, or whether it just never cleared up last time. Giardia is tricky. But he's a really good dog, and we have a lot of fun with him. L. took him to puppy class on his own tonight because I was sick, and he came back with glowing reports. He said that Oli is doing well with all of his new things and accomplished all of his tasks.

But the biggest news is that L. is going to Brazil for somewhere between one and three months. He leaves next Monday to work on an aircraft program down there. We're both sad about his leaving, but it is a good thing considering the state of things at his company and with the economy right now. We're trying to avoid layoffs at all costs. There was talk of layoffs at our company, too, but it looks like it doesn't affect our group, at least for the meantime. I hope that continues to hold out. L. will be coming back for about a week in mid March, so I'm sure that we'll retreat into our own little world while he's back.

So, that's where things are at right now. I feel the NyQuil kicking in now, so it's time for me to get ready for bed. Sleep tight...

Voiceless

So, I've been sick the last several days and pretty miserable, too. Sore throat for almost 5 days now, plus runny nose and congested sinuses, and chest congestion. This morning I woke up without a voice. I'm trying to remember the last time I lost my voice. L. has been taking really good care of me, and Oli wonders what's wrong with his mama. But I'm hopeful that today was the worst day and that now things can start getting better. Pretty please???

Oli's first haircut

Today Oli went in for his first full grooming appointment. I took him to a place where my cousin takes her standard poodle, Hoover. Hoover absolutely loves it there and I thought Oli should have a good experience for his first time. Grooming is a bit traumatic for the pups. Turns out that he did really well, and he looks like a real poodle now. He's so cute!

Before grooming:


After grooming: