That's Not the "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" That I Read

Greg is racing me through the Harry Potter series, and just went online to try to order #3. Either the library is confused, or I read the wrong book.

Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban / by J.K. Rowling.
Rowling, J. K.

Summary
In the near future, disease will be a condition of the past, cured genetically at birth or soon afterward. But for the generation born before this development, it is too late, and they must get along as best they can. Lou Arrendale is in this lost generation. He is a high-functioning autistic, with a job, friends, and a hobby. He has learned how to get along with his disability. But now, an experimental treatment will cure his autism. The question is, will he be the same person after he receives the treatment? Will he experience music, life, and love in the same way? With pressure mounting from his intolerant boss to become "normal," Lou must decide whether to undergo surgery that might well change the way he is. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

I Live About Half My Life in Parentheses (Sometimes More)

We're here, but things have been pretty quiet lately. We spent the weekend catching up, running errands, doing laundry. Just the usual. Lots of people have had lots of bad weather lately, but the last few storm systems that have come through have literally broken up around us. You can watch long, uninterrupted bands of rain on the radar, and once they hit the mountains, they just break up, and we could desperately use some more rain. (Uh oh, it has been a slow week. I'm talking about the weather. And first thing, too! That's how you know when it's a slow news night on Fox ... when the weather is the top story... or American Idol...)

Hope our moms had a good mothers day! It's hard being so far from both of our families.

Oh, some exciting news about our trip! One of Greg's friends from high school (hi Jeff!) lives out in Seattle, and we were planning on visiting him while we were out there. Well, he has graciously offered to let us borrow one of his cars for the time we're there. So yeah, we'll be driving around in a BMW convertible. :) How sweet is that? I owe Jeff a big pile of hand made cards. (Thought #1 ... and you thought I was worried about fitting our luggage in a Prius?!? Jeff swears the trunk is as big as a Corolla...) (Thought #2 ... Greg drives an automatic every day, so I will be doing the city driving.)

(Tangent #1: Greg was loading up the GPS with maps last night. We are old school. Anyhow, with the memory on the GPS, we can get all of where we'll be ... except the cities ... Portland, Seattle... I have given him permission to at least look at a new GPS, particularly if they have a buy one get one free deal on a Canon digital rebel body.)

And now, relating back to my last non-parenthetical sentence about cards (stay with me here), I finished up a graduation card for my youngest brother who will be graduating from Rutgers next week with his Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering. (I can post it because I'm pretty sure he is too cool to read my blog.)

I cleaned out my car today; it's been on my 'to do' list for a long time. I can't even remember the last time I cleaned it out. It wasn't a total mess, but there were papers under the seat from school, a bunch of those paint chip cards from Lowe's, old registration and insurance cards, candy wrappers. The only interesting find that I unearthed was a post-it note that had to have been vintage 2002. It had Greg's phone numbers on it! (Back when I had to write them down still ... ha ha!) I tried vacuuming out the car, but the shop vac just wasn't doing it. (And I was all excited to use the shop vac...) It was just all wrong for the job: the nozzle was too big to fit in all the little places where crap collects. I don't think they make dainty little shop vac attachments. And it just wasn't sucking all the stuff out. So I then I dragged the dyson out in the driveway.

I think Harry Potter 4 (and a big pile of laundry) is calling my name...

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

I can't believe I forgot to post this. Thanks to Scot for finding it. :) I can't get enough of it.

Good news!

I back to the doctor this week, and the cyst is gone! So happy you can't even imagine...

A long week

It's been a long week at work. It's just one of those situations where you have to work with people you wouldn't choose to work with, you know? Where you have to work with people who make you look bad, because they don't have their stuff together enough to tell you what's going on. Where you have to catch major oversights by someone who gets paid a lot more than you do. And then re-do all the work you've done because someone didn't do their research. (And yeah, that's all one person.)

But tomorrow is Friday.

I got a new computer at work today! It's a laptop, but I got to keep my big flat screen monitor, too, so now I can have the two screens going at once. I know you are jealous. But hey, I don't talk about work that often. Being down for hours this afternoon certainly didn't help my productivity, though. Things were really slow a few weeks ago, and that freaked me out a bit, so I asked for more work, and now I'm buried. The next few weeks are going to be very busy, but I work better like that anyway.

Greg has been in Alabama this week for work. His project has just been dragging along, and he sounded pretty miserable when I talked to him earlier. He was hoping to leave at a reasonable time on Friday to get home, but he still hasn't really gotten as far as he needs to with this project. Poor guy. It's been a long week for him, too. Lefty hasn't been waking me up like she did the last time he was away. But I think she keeps expecting to see him. She'll get up in the bed and look around. Or she'll wait outside the shower, and then I think she gets mad when it's not Greg. For me, she just sits in the kitchen and whines and stares at me, trying to use her powers to will me to do something, I just haven't figured out what. Because nothing makes her happy.

Well, nothing but napping on her favorite chair, that is...

A Saturday Night Challenge on Tuesday

Here's my (late) take on Pat's Saturday Night Challenge. The pictures are from our trip to the beach a few weeks ago.

Sunny and 80 degrees

We made it through the weekend without turning on the air conditioning. We're trying to hold out a bit longer. They were on last weekend, mostly for allergies. But we're back to windows and fans for now. Once the humidity hits, though, I won't hesitate to push that button...

We had a nice, leisurely weekend. Ran some errands and did some shopping on Saturday. Did some clean up, though not as much as I should have. Made some Mother's Day cards. Worked on a scrapbook layout. Went for a jog on Sunday morning.

Greg and I went to a *fabulous* new restaurant on Saturday night, called the Lazy Goat. It's a gorgeous location right on the river with walls of windows, and the food was just wonderful. We never made it to the entrees, though, so we will surely be headed back. We stuck to a tapas meal (and some good wine!), and had the fried goat cheese (I could eat this for the rest of my life and be a happy girl), moroccan lamb, polenta fries, and a shrimp special that was on ciabatta bread with tomatoes (I'm not doing it justice). I think this is my new favorite.

We finally made the last of our hotel reservations for our upcoming Pacific Northwest trip. I'm so excited! It's coming up really quickly now.

Greg is tearing through the Harry Potter series. He's on book 2 right now, but can't put it down. I've taken a break from HP for a little while after book 3, and am currently reading Eat, Pray, Love. I'm going to have to hurry up and get through 4 and 5, though! But they're huge compared to 1, 2, and 3.

That's all I got.

Life With Cats

A trail of footprints across the freshly made bed...

A library card that now Greg and Lefty can both use to check out books... ("Open your mouth, ma'am. Yup, those are your teeth. This must be your library card. Just don't chew on any more book covers.")

They must not understand what I went through to get this for Greg from the Heineken factory in Amsterdam...

I guess everyone wants minty fresh breath...

Doesn't it look like he's giving me the finger?

Or, at least like he wants to?

Oooh, I better be careful or he's not going to let me take any more pictures of him...

Some More Beach Pictures

Just got these back from Shutterfly.

You'll Have to Speak Loudly, My Ears are Clogged

I don't feel like the zombie I did a week ago, but I don't know where all this congestion is coming from. It's just non-stop. I don't have a fever, or any signs of an infection. Just lots and lots of snot clogging up my head. Great. And now my ears, too.

Not much going on here lately. Got some photos back from Boston, though, that I thought I'd post.

Love, love, love this picture of Greg.




A shot from the wedding... (which would have been better if I could have gotten the actual orchid in the photo instead of just the stems... but kinda neat in its own respect)

Projects

I've been busy this weekend! Coordinates Collections had an online crop, and I actually managed to get all 6 challenges finished this time.

"Greg took this photo of me on my thirtieth birthday while we were at dinner at the Melting Pot. For a long time, I'd been dreading reaching this milestone because it seems like I should have accomplished more by now. But when I look around, I can see how truly lucky I am right now. I have a wonderful husband who I adore, and a family who cares for and loves me. We are both employed. We are home owners. And we have two adorable cats. Sure, there's a lot to do still. And there are certainly days that I feel really old. But for now, thirty is not so bad."


"Changing jobs at work doesn't necessarily mean a promotion, so it felt really nice to finally celebrate my first real promotion earlier this year. Greg took me to my favorite Thai restaurant downtown, Lemongrass. Being recognized somehow makes the daily grind a little better, and I'll take whatever chance I can to celebrate that."


Our Friday Night Ritual.


You mean the world to me.


Soaking up the Sunshine.


4 weeks. "Four short weeks was all it took for the maple tree in front of the house to go from green to completely bare. We've been watching this tree grow since we moved into the house, so it's become an indicator of how long we've been here, and how much our relationship has grown at the same time. Four years in this house!"

Bleh

What ever happened to "I feel mostly ok otherwise"?

I've got a terrible allergy situation going on. My throat hurts, my head is severely congested. I'm on Zyrtec and Mucinex-D. But I'm sneezing and my nose will not stop dripping. I'm not sleeping well, probably because of the Mucinex. Ugh, I just feel miserable. I went in to work for a couple of hours this morning, but it was just too much.

I get these "attacks" a couple of times a year. I don't have a fever, but I was breaking out in a sweat yesterday and this morning. I wish I knew what to do to prevent them... and what to do to stop them and make this agony be over.

Bleh.

But my nurse kitty took care of me last night. Though she'd never admit it, I think Dusty actually missed me! It's very very rare for her to sleep in our bed... maybe once every few months. But as many times as I woke up last night, she was camped out on my lap. Greg said she slept on my side of the bed once on Monday night while I was gone, but then laundry occupied my side of the bed until I got home. :)

Got to go grab a tissue before I short circuit this thing...

Update on the Bronchiosaurus

Greg officially has bronchitis again (even though I prefer calling it bronchiosaurus, because it's more fun to say, and I don't get to talk about dinosaurs much these days). He says he's feeling better, and he sounds a bit better.

I've developed a sore throat this week, and am probably OD'ing on Riccola. I feel mostly ok otherwise.

But I did find a cute rain coat on clearance for $14.99 at Old Navy for our trip out to Seattle. That rocked.