How quickly things changed in 24 hours. I came home from work last Friday (the 13th, which was a good day save for saying good bye to a co-worker who is relocating overseas), relaxed at home and slept in gloriously late into Saturday. Know that feeling when you wake up and it just 'feels' different? In my bleary just-out-of-bed attempt to wake up I couldn't quite figure out what it was...other than it was super quiet outside. No dull drone of street noise.
Aha! It SNOWED! Where did I miss this on the TV weather forecasts? I suppose I should not have been too shocked - it is January, after all. I don't even know where to start with this one. Other than Snow + Seattle area is a very bad combination. For getting around, that is. Otherwise, it's gorgeous. Exhibit A - the view off my back deck.
We got around 6 inches or so in my area - by the time it was done the faint line markings from the deck in that picture were completely covered over. After hearing news reports and reading countless local-area Facebook posts we had anywhere from around 3 inches to over a foot depending on where you were.
The power stayed on here and my furnace is working. Everything else after that truly is all gravy. Check out my Cold Where It's Supposed to be Cold post from (*gulp* wow time flies) November 2010. Two furnace repairs and a crapped out fridge just a couple months prior to that made it an expensive end of that year...after just starting to get some decent income again following a long unemployed streak. So anyway, here we are in 2012 and I relished my warm townhouse, hot showers and the beautiful snow falling outside.
After a couple of days it got old. Driving in the snow in the Seattle area is a hot topic for sure. In general, it's not a good idea. Seriously...a few inches of snow will literally bring us to our knees. We're hilly. We don't have a ton of snow removal equipment. We're not like other parts of the country who deal with this routinely and life goes on. Around here, it just doesn't. Hell, when a UPS truck gets stuck in your driveway, you know it's bad.
What is it about snow? It brings a huge Hush Hug over everything in its embrace. I stay in my jammies all day and take naps. At noon.
But soon it was time to get back to work. Thankfully this team is all about playing it safe and not trying to be heroes getting into the office. We can all work remotely, although in the type of work we do it's not ideal for long periods of time as I learned.
There was one small problem. The power cord for my work laptop was still in my office! I never bring it home because I never work from home. It still reminds me too much of when I was unemployed, and frankly I'd rather get out of the house and be around people during the day. In my last work assignment my work laptop was the same brand as my home one, so it was easy to just swap out the power cords between the two if I ever did work from home on rare occasion. Not this time, however.
On Monday I was able to squeak by with doing email either from my phone or through my home laptop. But I didn't have full access to the internal resources I depend on to get work done. And I attempted a few times to get the work laptop connected with my home cable modem, but the modem is new and I was unfamiliar with the steps to switch connectivity (I don't use a router). And I watched the battery power indicator slowly sink southward as I chatted with our corporate Helpdesk and all to troubleshoot. No luck.
So I knew Tuesday I needed to get into work somehow to get that power cord. They were predicting heavy snow Tuesday into Wednesday. Turns out the main roads were pretty clear. It's the side streets, sidewalks and driveways that are the problem.
I got into work just fine and was pleasantly surprised to see my officemate there already. Ahhh, human interaction! We had both planned to stay for a few hours, but then got a phone call from her husband around lunch time that it was really starting to snow hard and we better get home. I'm so glad he called, because our office does not have a window and it was snowing much harder up near where my officemate and I live compared to work.
When you're stuck at home snowbound, the cabin fever grips tight. The novelty wears off quickly. So to fight it off, I vowed to get out of the house at least once a day for a walk. And it really helps - and is pretty good exercise too stomping through heavy, wet snow.
Thankfully by Friday the snow turned to rain and everything turned into a big slushfest. Relief was coming! Freedom!
And what a great way to blast back into the routine of life with a wonderful Saturday. My friend L ventured out this way to the suburbs (I joke that he's mentally allergic to them but that's another story). With iPad in hand, he and I walked through the townhouse here and talked about tons of ideas to update my place. I know my place needs work, and I know I need to keep an open mind. We jumped around all over the place with ideas and chitchat. And we agreed on a general plan to start work upstairs here where the bedrooms are and then slowly work our way downstairs.
Oh boy. That means my 3rd bedroom - the Room of Crap - is in the hotseat first. And that's actually a great idea as it is very underutilized space save for a large bookcase and random stuff on the floor that needs to get boxed up into storage or thrown out. And I get to think about paint colors too, for it's still Insane Asylum White like the rest of this place was when I first bought it. Oh, the possibilities! L wants to convert it to my home office and have the home office where I am now become a guest bedroom, as this room is larger and can hold a queen-sized bed. Interesting idea!
Later I headed out (Out! After not driving for 5 days!) to meet friends for our annual Chinese New Year dinner at China Clipper in Woodinville. They have wonderful, pretty close to authentic Northern Chinese cuisine. We had a blast at dinner and then headed over to J's house for board games and laughter. Know when you laugh so hard that tears stream down your face?
Fantastic.
I'm in one of those moods where I am feeling both a little anxious and yet blissfully, almost gluttonously relaxed. Here we are on a long Labor Day weekend and it is absolutely beyond gorgeous outside. It's sunny and the air is thick and hot with hardly any breeze. Not a humid thick, though. It's that warm, gentle reminder that Fall is right around the corner. And even in the heat the shadows are a tad long as we're well past the Solstice. So I don't dare bitch at all about the heat. After all, this summer was a total bust save for maybe one week in August. In the Pacific Northwest we appreciate and savor our sunny days, for we know the clouds and drizzle are just a few months away. We pay a price for it being so green here.
I grasp hard at August, kicking and screaming as she wraps up. There's something about those last few days before September kicks in that make me feel a little whiney and cranky. I don't WANT it to be September! Maybe it's that deeply ingrained childhood memory of the end of summer vacation. Yuck, I didn't WANT to go back to school. But of course once I did it was great...mostly.
So it's a staycation holiday weekend for me...no worries there. Just getting totally random things done and also, just relaxing. I decided to get into the 21st century even more for real and switched my landline over to my Comcast internet and cable package. I found out I could bundle my phone service in with my cable and internet and pay less than I was paying for my current Comcast services (huh? wow) AND save the $55 a month I was paying for my old school landline. AND keep my same landline number. AND get a DVR for my TV. What's not to love about this? I weighed the pros and cons...when the power's out or when Comcast is down I'll be screwed but then again, how often does that happen? I have a super old school curly cord phone in my bedroom with the ringer turned off - I have it for emergencies and have two other cordless phones here in the townhouse. When we had a two-week power outage back in late 2006 that old school landline saved me. Cell phone towers were knocked out and we were pretty much brought to our knees, crippled with minimal if any communication. I've been reluctant to cut the cord on my landline because of that, but then remember that that was a freak once-in-a-lifetime storm.
So yesterday two Comcast dudes show up and within an hour, voila. I have a new, higher speed modem for my internet (which now hosts my landline phones too) AND a DVR for my TV. Don't laugh...I still haven't converted to a flat screen TV yet. I will. My old curly cord phone is now as useful as last week's newspaper so away she goes.
They explained how the initial upload and refresh of the TV channels can take awhile which seemed reasonable to me. They showed me how to set up my voicemail for my new landline service - all good. I was very impressed with how helpful they both were. And they even showed up a little earlier than my appointment timeframe. Nice!
Guess it was too good to be true. I waited a little while before playing around with the TV. When I did, my remote was pretty much useless. Did the batteries die? Nope. I could adjust the TV volume and mute the sound with it, but could not change channels nor get to the channel lineup guide. Stuck! God, help me...my TV's stuck on the E! channel and just my luck it's a Keeping up with the Kardashians marathon. I can only stomach that scripted reality TV crap (krap?) for a few minutes at a time.
So Comcast rebooted my TV and cable box remotely. All's well...or was. Within an hour it froze up again...and Comcast had to reboot it remotely for the second time. After that everything was fine for the rest of the evening. As I was heading to bed I realized I'd forgotten to try the DVR out but I figured I would do that today.
I woke up this morning and decided to play around with the TV more before heading out to meet my good friend J for brunch. UGH. This time the TV turned on just fine...and then 5 minutes later the cable box rebooted...on its own. It's possessed or something. HELP!
Comcast is sending out a crew to swap out my cable box this afternoon. I was pleasantly shocked that they could do a same-day service, especially here on a Sunday, but I'll take it. It's the least they can do to make this right.
And yet, it's just TV. Sure I want it working right as it should, but I'm not going to get overly upset about it. Now if it was Stanley Cup Finals or something that would be a different story. Just trying to keep perspective...
...meaning it was a tough week these past few days. My Dad's cousin J passed away suddenly from a heart attack. The next day my co-worker L's Dad passed away after a long battle with Parkinson's and dementia. And the day after that my friend T was hit on her morning commute into work...her car got rear-ended on the freeway by someone who wasn't paying attention and she's still feeling the after effects, though thankfully not severely injured.
I was talking about this with J this morning over lots of coffee and a nice bacon and cheese omelette. Yum, I may not even need dinner I'm so full. She agrees, yes, it's all about perspective. Sometimes it's hard to find that discipline within. I guess it's ongoing Life Work.
We walked around the shops near where we had brunch...wonderful little boutiquey specialty stores full of everything from art to home accessories (my weakness) and crafts like rubber stamping and beading. No patience here for either of those but it's fun to look.
And we ended up in a fantastic shop we both love to visit. It has tons of candles and aromatherapy things (oils, humidifiers)...and lots of stones and crystals. I LOVE the chunk of Celestite I purchased there nearly a couple of years ago - it's right next to me here by the good ol' laptop.
Once again, something pretty much leaped off the shelf into my arms. Labradorite. The picture in my post here is of a polished sphere...my chunk is, well, wonderfully imperfect...half of it is polished and the other is rough. Deliciously asymmetrical and hunky. I love the greens and greys. I asked the woman in the store to tell me a little about it. "It's a magic stone," she explained. She pulled out a huge, well-worn book and turned to the page. "Helps one remain calm within chaos." Ahhhh, sounds good to me. Here's more .
So my new Labradorite holds a tea light or votive too. Love it. And the woman who works there is so nice...she is very gentle, knowlegeable and grandmotherly and reminds me a little of a therapist I used to see about 10 years ago.
I'm not yet sure where to put this new beauty, but I think I'll keep it near the TV and DVR for now.
After all, it couldn't hurt.
I'll let you in on a little secret. I've started this funny tradition of sorts the past 3 years. Mid July just isn't mid July without the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale! Yes, angels sing as I open my mailbox and find the catalogue waiting, packed with new goodies on sale for the fall/winter season!
THIS is my favorite time of year to shop. Lots of you may know I love to invest in fall/winter clothing, shoes, boots, scarves, etc. Around here the summer season is so short it's just not worth it to go all out with expensive shorts, tops, sundresses, etc. OK, I DO plunk down some cashola on sandals and flip flops...oh and nice sunglasses too. A girl's gotta accessorize. But for summer clothing, put me in J. Crew clearance and I'm happy.
So what's my tradition? No, it's not taking the day off from work and waiting for the store to open that fabulous Friday morning at 7am. Not this night owl! I pour over the catalogue and mark my favorites. Then I stay up late the night before, and when the clock strikes midnight, I go online and place my order! Then I fall blissfully into bed...and get back to work the next day.
About a week later, the hot UPS man shows up with my order! How awesome is this? No crowds or long lines in the stores. If you know your sizes in your favorite designers, shopping online is a great alternative.
I'm really happy with my choices this year: black high heeled Via Spiga ankle boots (I pretty much live in black shoes and boots 3 seasons of the year) and black patent leather high heeled loafers (by Me Too, a brand I had not heard before of but these fit very nicely, whew). High heeled loafers are very on trend this season. And I smile and remember when they also were about 15ish years ago...I had surgery on my right foot back in 1995 and I remember treating myself to a pair as a reward to myself for getting through the surgery, crutches and physical therapy. Excruciating. But I will never take walking without pain for granted ever again. Thank you, Dr. S!!
I also purchased a wonderful, light knit wool wrap in a deep magenta with some charcoal grey on the trim. Delicious! And I found a fair isle sweater in grey and black (do we see a pattern here), cut in a loose, boxy style with a wide neckline. Kind of an edgy take on a classic. I like this. Fair Isle is very pretty, but it is too preppy bordering on frumpy in a more traditional sweater style on me.
Another part of this ritual is the funny feeling of trying on new winter clothes when it's blasting hot weather. Oooh the feel of comfy wool or cashmere...so contradictory slipping it on when it's 90 degrees out...I forget for a second what it feels like after all these months!
Well, except for this year.
Our weather this spring and summer has been terrible. Much more cold and rainy than usual. Even last Sunday I went for a walk with my neighbor, A and her dog. It POURED rain. Rain like cold February rain. In freakin' mid July. UGH! There was some news story going around about how we've only had about 80 minutes of above 80 degree temperatures this year. Meanwhile the rest of the country is gripped in a heat wave.
I zipped home from work last week knowing my Nordstrom delivery would be waiting on my front doorstep! Bliss! The boots and shoes both fit great, and the wrap is gorgeous! Next I darted upstairs to try on the sweater...very soft and comfortable.
And that night I pretty much needed to keep it on. Brrr. Nope, no sweating!
Do we have hope for a hot, late summer? Hello, August??
