Absentee ballots: the hip new way to vote

I read in the paper a few weeks ago that it is becoming increasingly popular to vote BEFORE the election, and something like 10% of the votes are going to be absentee votes this year. I had an aha! moment (that is an O! the Oprah Magazine reference) and realized I could win several ways with an absentee ballot. First, I can avoid going to the polls on Nov 4, which we all know can be a headache (especially if you are in a very enthusiastic neighborhood - we waited in line for over an hour last time around). Second, you can actually figure out what each of the things are you are voting for by looking them up and doing your research while you have the ballot in hand. And third - this is something I realized after I finished voting today - you can properly distance yourself from all the political mayhem that starts to drive you batty about one week before voting day.

so my vote is to do absentee voting! it's awesome!

If you want to know how, don't ask me. I requested the ballot on some website somewhere that would take me an hour to find again (I am already registered to vote, so after I finally found the right link it was easy).

Mustache!

The Studly Hubby has a great mustache for halloween but no good costume to put it with. He hemmed and hawed over what to do and finally went to the best place to get ideas, Value Village. It was there that the miracle happened: on a rack, right in front of him, was a mullet wig. And he knew that he would be a hick for halloween.


And while he was there, he thought, 'what about my pretty wife? what will she be?' and so he bought a set of angel wings (isn't he sweet!) and brought them home for me. When I laid my eyes on the package of angel wings the second miracle happened and I knew that I would dress in blue and be a blue angel for halloween.

(for those of you that do not live in Seattle, the Blue Angels show is a hallmark of summer and they actually close the freeway so the whole city can come out to party).

The Dahlia story

Hello, my name is Yellow-orange Dahlia. I look like this:


Aren't I pretty?

I've had a tough life. I was sprouted from a bulb planted by my mommy in the early spring. As soon as I got big enough to see the sun these nasty slugs started eating my leaves and I couldn't grow any bigger! My mommy put out slug traps and weeded and watered and I tried and tried but just couldn't get any bigger than a half-eaten leaf sticking out of the ground. I stayed like that all summer but the slugs wouldn't go away until it started getting really cold at night. Then one day there were no more slugs so I could finally grow and grow and now I'm really big and have lots of pretty flowers!! Maybe next year I will be bigger and stronger and can beat those mean old slugs.

Saturday Hike

The Studly Hubby and I attempted to take it easy this weekend but I ruined it with many many plans as usual. The first thing I really wanted to do was go on a hike because we haven't gone on a hike at all this year!! We went out to Little Si, the smaller version of Mount Si, and hiked up and back down (3 hrs total). It was a bright beautiful day and a wonderful hike, and wasn't hard on any of my injuries.


Next we went down to the South Center Mall, pigged out at Famous Dave's, then went shopping and purchased our first Christmas present of the year...! I can't say what it is because it's a surprise for someone that reads my blog. We came back home at 8 pm, took a quick shower, then went out a partied! with one of my good co-worker friends that is leaving this week. Afterwards we watched Saturday Night Live then finally went to bed at 1 am. And that was just Saturday! Whew, sometimes it's easier to just work all day.

Bike Trip Memento

The bike trip pictures just came out and I scoured through them and found some good ones of the Studly Hubby and I. In this one, taken on the third day, we were taking a little break for some blackberries by the side of the road on Lopez Island. Yum!

G-mail: Email Goggles

I guess drunk emailing has become a big enough problem that somebody needed to do something about it, and Google stepped up. They recently introduced 'Email Goggles', a sobriety test for emailers that must be passed before one can access email between 10 pm and 1 am (it takes about 60 seconds). But for those of you who only send good, productive emails when drunk, don't worry: email goggles is optional.

Pro Sports Club - the fancy-pants club for fancy-pants city folk

Thanks to my Studly Hubby's new employer, Microsoft, we just got deeply discounted memberships to the fanciest gym I've ever been to, Pro Sports Club. I never dreamed of such wonderful-ness: free towels (all the towels you could ever want!), no waits for equipment, a clean locker room with fancy pants free lockers, hot tub, sauna, and steam room (one set for each gender!), and views of the city while you work out. All the staff wear cute matching track outfits with the Pro Sports logo on them, and they breeze through every five minutes to make sure everything you're using is spanking fresh and clean. The gym is so nice and wonderful, but my heart will always belong to our old neighborhood YWCA (in Minneapolis), with the giant family pool and the 'kids' gym', and where I spent so many hours while I was in graduate school.

Am I a Mac Convert?

The new MacBook Pro came out today. It's very pretty.

Sarah Vowell POWER

I went to go see Sarah Vowell do a reading of her new book tonight. She is the voice of Violet in The Incredibles (shown above), and has a pretty funny take on history. She's been on This American Life and the Daily Show and wrote a few books and whatnot. The reading itself was boring but when she answered questions she was very funny. The questions themselves were very funny. One was, 'why do you like plaques and statues?' (her answer: ever since her first personal relationship with a plaque in a coffee shop, she has appreciated what they bring to the culture of a neighborhood) and another was 'who do you consider the most unappreciated figure in history?' (her answer: the person who invented Caller ID).

WHOOSH!

That was my week: WHOOSH!

My open commitment a few weeks ago was to POST MORE in October, and I am not doing such a great job at it. Well at least an ENTIRE week didn't go by since my last post.

This week, in addition to my usual work schedule, I had book club (we read Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett), went to an Expanding Your Horizons science workshop (to get ideas for giving science workshops to middle school girls, we ate chocolate and then burned some table salt), went to a good-bye party for two co-worker/friends that will be gravely missed, and the two days I didn't have stuff planned after work I worked late.

Other things going on: we've switched our allegiance from biking back to running. I bought new running shoes a while back but have barely used them due to the knee and back injuries from last year. In my last physical therapy appointment, my PT suggested I put hard insoles into my shoes to help stabilize my foot (my right foot pronates in a little because I have a stiff ankle, she discovered, which is probably why I hurt my knee). I tried this and it helped, but I can tell I'm going to need more. I'm getting fitted for orthotics next week! Hopefully someday soon I can get back to my old running ways (i.e. going the distance, but not very quickly).

Also the Studly Hubby's mustache is coming along. He debuted it at my office party where people were noticing without him even having to point it out - he was so proud! He didn't even mind that after they noticed they laughed so hard they almost fell over.

Mustache Party

My Studly Hubby is so excited, because he is growing a mustache.

He and several co-workers engaged in a 'mustache competition' until Halloween to see 1) who could last the longest and 2) who could grow the better mustache. One co-worker already dropped out, and speculations are that his wife stepped in. Now it's between my Studly Hubby and one other Studly Co-worker 'W' and the race is neck-and-neck at the moment.

The Studly Hubby, Week 1

The funny part is that both the Studly Hubby and 'W' have been at it an entire week and you can't really tell what they are up to. Thank goodness!

Headlines from the J&D Household

My dad went through a 'headlines' phase where he would update friends and family with headlines like in the paper. Here are some headlines from our household this week (I am J, my Studly Hubby is D):

J Vows to Deliver More Posts on her Blog
J Forgets about her Blog
NaBloPoMo is a Bust

D Plays at Blues Jam on Wednesday
J Goes to Blues Jam on Wednesday
J Swoons While D is Onstage
D Has Successfull Show

J&D both work all weekend
J ends the weekend by blowing up her biofilm in a grand spectacle event
D takes a break from work to go pick up J and console her
J decides biofilm was better off dead anyway

J&D take one week off after Big Bike Event
J hopes bike event trained her Quads like steel
J gets back on bike, heads for a hill, gets off bike and walks
J decides her quads are still recovering

I already blew it!

One day in to NaBloPoMo and I already blew it... I forgot to post yesterday! It was October 1 already. Last year, I think I forgot to post on the first day too!

Well in case you haven't noticed I haven't really committed to this thing yet. And nobody else (on my blog) has either. My goal was to just get myself to post more often... I've sort of fallen off the wagon recently and am once a week (or even less sometimes!). But on the flip side, maybe I started only posting once a week way back when I did NaBloPoMo last year and I was so burned out afterwards from having to post every day... hrm.

Well I will commit to something here: I aim to post MORE OFTEN in October, but maybe not every day.