Category Archives: Old system to change to tags – holiday

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Happy New Year!

Got VixenArts.com running today for a friend, read most of Spirits in the Wires (borrowed from same friend) – who we had yummy Japanese with at Katana in Sunnyvale yesterday. Also went to see The Princess and the Frog – it was great!

Having a family dinner tonight, the cooking started at three, and folks should start to arrive shortly. Tomorrow we plan to see either Avatar or Sherlock Holmes.

And before I forget – Mel’s brownie sundae sucks, bleh! Only one as bad or worse than Baskin Robbins so far.

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Thanksgiving

Wednesday night papa and his wife drove down. We had dinner at IHOP and then watched Juno (which was really good). Thursday we drove to San Jose. Mom, her husband and my brother drove down to meet us. We then all went for lunch/dinner at my pirate’s aunt & uncle’s house. Lots of good food. Most of the youngin’s went for a walk later on (after mom and crew left for home). Friday papa gave my pirate a ride home so he could go in to work (ugh!) while I stayed to hang out with MM on Saturday. We had lunch at a Japanese place, played some WoW and watched a bunch of anime.

Sunday I just relaxed, baked everything cookies for AP and did chores.
Monday night I finally got the save the dates done. So Tuesday they went in the mail as did the cookies. Tuesday night I made it out to salsa night. Wednesday I fussed with the computer some while I figured out what cookies to make. And tonight I got two batches of dough finished and it’s bed time with gym time at 8am tomorrow. Bleh! Too early!

Oh, and I’m thankful for such wonderful future in-laws, and such wonderful family and a great fiance. I’m also thankful dad gave my pirate a ride so I could spend time with one of my best friends.

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Postcards

I’m almost done designing the Save the Dates, so I hope to get those printed and mailed sometime this week. I’m not getting them out as early as I’d hoped so I need to call my aunts and uncle and remind them about my wedding next year before they make Thanksgiving plans.

This weekend I got a bunch more stuff cleaned up and reorganized at home. We need to pick up the wifi dongle that we think is at my future-in-laws place so I can relocate the computer desk.

We had a chance to go to Disneyland on Saturday, but as tired as I was all last week, and this weekend, and still some this week, it’s good I stayed home to rest. Plus I messed up and read my calendar wrong for one of my medications so I’ve been all hormonal last week and this weekend. Definitely not a good time to be traveling and dealing with crowds.

We had the Primerica guy out with our “FNA” Financial Needs Analysis. It was fairly interesting and we’re basically on track with where I want to be. The mutual funds and bond funds he gave us info on seem interesting, so we’re going to run that by my pirate’s dad and see what he thinks. Most of what I read online about them is that their products are fairly standard, but to avoid their “work part time for more money” offer since they’re basically yet another multi-level-marketing corp (like Amway/Quixtar).

Email cleaning:
July 3rd I got to hang out with MM, JL and a few other folks at MM’s new place. AP unfortunately had to work. We were in the bay for the Fourth of July, so we got together that night to play board games and hang out. Good times as always with that crew.

New Miyazaki movie to look forward to: Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea, which will be released in Japan in July, 2008.

My pirate sent me this article June 27:
Explosive Art: Explosive Art Created With Rocket Fuel, Gunpowder, Propellants and Bullets
Someone I know happens to work at the SCAD, so I forward it to them and got this great response:
“I remember receiving his purchase requisition for that rocket fuel and a couple rounds for that uzi. It was fun explaining that one to the VP for Financing”
Now that’s what I call an interesting day at work!

Fourth of July weekend I think is also when we went to see the San Francisco Theological Seminary – really nice location but not one that would work for us. Great for an outdoor spring or summer wedding though! And I think this might also be when we stopped in SF and found my wedding dress?

Mom’s wedding shower was in June, I think I blogged about that already, but if not, my new step-sister helped host it and was really awesome. We had it at her place and she was a huge help in making it such a success.

My pirate’s cousin’s daughter’s (is that second cousin?) birthday was in June (I think?) and we put together a pot of colorful flowers for her. CE (his cousin’s wife) also started taking massage certification courses, so we got to be practice dummies, which was wonderful.

July my cousin JH was down for a martial arts convention (where he passed his black belt test!) so we drove to the bay area to meet up and hang out. We stopped by a Starbucks to get drinks and chat for a while, and then we decided to see Hancock, which I really enjoyed. It definitely had some interesting twists.

PSA: If you use Gmail – go to Settings (upper right corner) then scroll to the bottom and select the option to always use HTTPS and save your settings. This forces gmail to always use the encrypted https instead of http (which leaves it open to attack).

August 18th Cookie was constipated really badly (which can signal serious health problems in a cat) so we took her to the vet the next day and a few time afterwards for more test. Turns out that her kidneys are starting to fail from old age as she’s almost 9 or 10 and her breed (Snowshoe) on average live only 10-14 years instead of 18. 🙁 So she’s now on a special diet and gets fed separately from the other guys. So she’s put weight back on which is good, and next month when they all go in for their annual check we’ll do a blood test to see how she’s doing.

September 20th was a bit crazy. I helped set up JG’s bridal shower (and then attended of course) then drove home to grab my pirate and we were off to the bay area for a BBQ and games with MM, JL, AP and gang. So super busy, but a ton of fun that day too.

Then the 26th both my parents and my brother came to visit and celebrate my brothers birthday. Then my pirates folks joined us for lunch on the 27th to meet my dad & his wife. That night was JG’s bachelorette party, then the next day was Peanut’s baby shower. Whew! Talk about a non-stop weekend.

I baked everything cookies (3 batches!) as birthday gifts… I was so tired by the last batch though that I forgot to add any of the sugar. And it turns out that the brown sugar is a key ingredient for the shape and texture – it’s what lets the cookies spread and stay soft. So the last batch came out as hard crumbly balls. They still tasted good, so I took some to the office and my pirate took some to the lab (and kept them for himself instead of sharing, hehe!). So I got two batches off in the mail and have one to remake still.

JG&BW’s wedding was Oct. 11. My pirate went there for the bachelor party on the 9th, and the bride and I drove up together on the 10th. We stayed at a nice cabin that is owned by the parents of one of my pirate’s former coworkers. Wedding was awesome, almost everyone danced for the whole time, the dance floor was packed – memorable moments: being Rick Rolled, the Conga line and the teenage boy hiding under a table to avoid participating in it. We hung out and had brunch buffet together.

The gang’s joint birthday bbq was the 18th. And as always, awesome food and great company. I almost forgot that I was just getting over a cold. I think maybe the tequila helped get rid of my sore throat. 😛

November 1 J&SP had a Halloween/Day of the Dead party, the monster finger cookies were especially tasty. We got in some zombie flux which was fun. Also earlier that day we checked out a possible wedding location in Fairfield, but we ended up deciding on the golf course in Santa Rosa.

And I’m down to 22 emails in my inbox finally. Yay!

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Getting Caught Up Again – 200+ email backlog

I finally have some time to clear out my mailbox and get somewhat up to date here. I think some of this I may have made time to blog about, but not all of it.

For wedding stuff scroll down to 11-16-2007.
Continue reading →

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Winter Speeds By

Lets see… actually mailed all Christmas cards BEFORE Christmas for the first time ever! 😀

The office is all decorated, including my desk, and people have started adding to my penguin collection. 🙂

Last weekend was San Jose to have lunch with my pirate’s parents for his birthday. Then a nice nap followed by a holiday party in Redwood City. Lots of good food, conversation and a fun white elephant exchange. Sadly I didn’t find my pirate’s bears from last year till the next day. So they’ll have to wait till next year to pass on!

The next day we had dinner with his cousin & family and had a great time. I made the slow cooker chicken again (without the insane lemon this time!) and we’ve been having leftovers all week.

I found some pilates videos I liked at the library – the Gaiam dvds by Ana Caban. So those are on my Amazon wish list to get at some point.

I also got my Amazon gift card in the mail so the last Harry Potter book should be showing up soon. 😀

This coming weekend is going to be relax time and chore time. Which will be great after so many busy weekends! Oh, and I’m donating blood tomorrow morning. I can make the early appointments now since I can take time off work to volunteer.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

The thing I’m most thankful for is the abundance of wonderful people in my life for me to love! *hugs*

The chocolate factory tour was educational, interesting and yummy! Lunch at their cafe afterwards was tasty, and we followed that up with wandering 4th Street in Berkeley and then Emery Bay Street Mall and dinner there at Askew (a kabob place – I got yummy grilled artichoke and butternut squash soup).

I don’t recall too much of Sunday, we watched some anime and avatar online, and then went to get the ring! After that I was kinda in a giddy cloud. We did stop by REI which was nearby and they had a hang board of the right color in stock! We’ve been looking for a month or two now for one in a color I wouldn’t mind installing. So now we just have to find a couple studs above a doorway to install it. I dragged my pirate around the Expo Design Center some too before we headed home.

Monday night my friend JG took me out and got us both french manicures (since I’ll be showing off my hand for a while yet!) and then to dinner where we looked mostly at wedding dresses in magazines. We have a lot of similar tastes we discovered when discussing wedding ideas.

Tuesday night I cooked my carrots vichy recipe and my sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving. I replaced have the sweetpotato with a butternut squash I needed to use up, and I accidentally dropped somewhere between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of pepper in (I was trying to only tap one shake in) but luckily I had decided to use the black and white pepper I have which is milder. So it actually turned out really well. I think so at least, which is good since I’m going to be eating leftovers from it for the next week.

Wednesday night we were allowed to go home early, which for me ended up being around 5:30. By 6:30 we left to drive to San Jose.

This morning we all piled in the car and headed to Santa Rosa. It took about 2 and a half hours and traffic wasn’t too bad. Getting onto the Golden Gate Bridge and the Novato Narrows were the only bad spots. My brother was able to join us in time for dinner, and we just barely managed to fit everyone at the table except for my future step-father. He stood in the kitchen next to us eating and serving the food. Everything was good and we all had a good time talking and laughing. I think if we can eat together and laugh together, our families are going to get along just fine. We went for a walk after dinner and my pirate gave the dogs a run like we’ve gotten into the habit of doing when we’re with my mom. The dogs love it and my pirate usually has the energy to spare. We had pie and Belgian chocolates for dessert and then headed out. I got dropped off at home to take care of the kitties (who are all curled up in bed with me now) and my pirate and his family headed back to San Jose.

I’ll miss him, but I want to go through the wedding books my mom lent me and also get my Christmas cards done, along with laundry and some other chores and projects.

Time to do some reading and kitty cuddling!

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November Hajime!

This month is off to a great start already. Khalua played fetch for a while this morning which was really cute, hopefully she’ll make it a regular game to play rather than a one time fluke. I woke up early enough to do some chores this morning too.

Last night was dance class which is always good. Tonight is probably dinner and or climbing with some friends, and I’d like to get the map for Spotlight done too. Then Friday I can do my freelance work.

Saturday we have haircuts (my hair is finally at that annoying flip out phase of growing it out, fingers crossed my stylist can conquer it) and then we go to Napa to a B&B for the rest of the weekend for our one year anniversary. 😀

The weekend after that I go to Georgia to see Tora and his lady, then the next one we’re going to the Schaffenberger (chocolate) factory tour, then it’s home for Thanksgiving, then my holiday party, then a friend’s holiday party. Then finally a weekend free again to relax! I have no clue if I’ll manage to get my Christmas cards out on time. Hopefully!

Time to get ready for work!

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New Years Weekend

Friday I ran errands in Sac before hanging out with my pirate and his buddy D and then joined TC and AP(m) for some Mario Party and saw AP(m) playing Katamari. Game actually does look fun.

Saturday I got my hair cut and colored and then went to a friend’s party in Redwood City with Meow and TM & JPS for nabe. Got a cute tamogatchi in the gift exchange after JP saved me from the 2 boxes of staples. We’ll see how long till I get bored with it.

Sunday I vegged all day, played with the computer, read, slept, played with kitties, etc. My pirate called me at midnight, yay! 😀

And Monday I got a bunch of chores done, and Meow stopped by to help. So my doorbell is screwed in and shouldn’t come off again. And I have part of my Kadavrant curtains from IKEA hung, just need one more to hide the furnace enclosure properly.