New Furniture!

We got our new furniture and arranged it thusly (don't you like that word?) in our living room:

We love it! It's so comfortable I keep falling asleep on it. Next up: pillows that 'bring the whole room together' (anybody know what movie that's from?). For this we may pull out the sewing machine and go to some fabric stores. I'm thinking about making FOUR pillows, so that we can have them all over the place. The two you see on the couch are from our previous apartment - they matched our old curtains. When I bought the fabric and the pillow inserts I thought for some reason that they would be much bigger. Now I know better.

We also acquired a rowing machine this weekend:

Our neighbors are moving out and put a bunch of junk out in the yard, including this fine-looking rowing machine. We then added some things of our own to the junk pile - there's nothing like a big neighborhood junk pile. Today the only things left are a pillow and two brooms, so clearly the neighborhood made use of the junk in the pile. The Studly Hubby has already used the rowing machine twice. I'm kind of afraid of it. In the background you can see our fireplace, which I am also afraid of. I prefer sitting on the new couch to trying to figure out complicated things like rowing machines and fireplaces.

Mad Max the Pig-Dog

We're dogsitting for Max the Pig-Dog again, this time for the whole week. It's nice to have him for a longer time, so we can really see what it's like. The first day he was totally excited and ran all around our apartment like the energizer bunny all day. Now he's calming down a lot more and settling into a nice pattern. He's a very well-behaved dog, but still has an unbelievable amount of energy (especially for a 13 yr-old!). Yesterday morning while we ate breakfast and watched, he streaked continuously around our dining room table, and every morning he and the Studly Hubby hold a fantastic tug-of-war tournament. We've learned that a good couple of blocks at a hard run while we're out on each of his walks really helps to wear him out (good thing he's so little, or we could never wear him out).

I really like having a dog, and it hasn't been too hard letting him out or feeding him (as long as we share the work). The only thing I don't think I could take long-term is getting up so early - this dog wakes us up at 5:30 on the dot, every morning. Blah!

Things to do at Green Lake

We are starting to train for the Vancouver half-marathon (13 miles), so we ran 7 yesterday at Green Lake. It was quite a challenge - I'm trying to speed up to a decent pace (12 min/mile is fast for me) and that was a two-mile increase from last week (plus we skipped a short run last week because my dad was visiting). I was sore enough last night that it actually interfered with my sleep - or maybe it was the Pig-Dog we're dogsitting right now.

While we were diligently trotting around Green Lake I made a mental note of all the interesting stuff going on there (most of which goes on every weekend):

1. A Poet - at a little table with a sign "POET" - that I presume will write poems for anybody who asks. We've never asked so I don't know what the cost is. Every Sat and Sun the table is there and someone is sitting down at it looking busy.

2. A Spanish teacher - an old guy that wanders around the lake with a vest on that says "SPANISH LESSONS" - he is often walking beside someone speaking Spanish with him, so he seems to get some business. It occurred to me that he must burn a lot of calories walking around the lake all weekend, too.

3. Weird-looking ducks. They look like ducks (and they hang with the ducks) but have a shorter body length and are darker in color. I can't find a picture of them and we only started seeing them recently so I haven't had a chance to take a picture yet. I'll try to get a picture and post it and see if anybody knows what they are.

4. LOTS of different kinds of dogs, most of them trying to visit each other and all of them looking totally thrilled. Since we've been dog shopping a little bit, I've been familiarizing more with the dog breeds so I try to guess them as we pass. Unfortunately I never know whether I'm right but it's still fun.

After our 7-mile run yesterday we took Pig-Dog on a 3 mile walk to wear him out - he was pretty excited to be hanging out with us, as anybody would be. I think we wore ourselves out pretty good too - but the Studly Hubby kept on going last night and rearranged some furniture to get ready for our new couch, which will be arriving on Tuesday.

Have a good week everyone!

High-maintenance WHAT?

A new store has opened in our neighborhood, called "High Maintenance Bitch" which has caused quite a stir. I was stirred to go inside, but have decided to wait until next week when we are dogsitting so that I can look for something to buy for our guest. A few people were stirred to call up the news and have a fit about the use of foul language on a public sign, and my Dad was stirred to take one of their business cards and a few photographs in front of the store.

Visit from the Daddio

We just got done hosting my Daddio for a few days while he was in town for a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Conference here in Seattle. We had such a fantastic time! We ate and joked and bonded and toured all around the city together. Thursday we all took most of the day off and went to Pike's Place, where we bought some coffee at the original Starbucks and went shopping for some souvenirs for my Dad's herd of boys back home.

Dad and I posing in front of a huge fish at the market, which would cost about $200 whole - my dad settled for a $10 hunk of dried salmon

Then we took the FERRY out to Bainbridge Island, which was so much fun I couldn't hardly stop wiggling. Then we came back to town, met some of his colleagues for some appetizers at a sushi place, and he came into the lab with me for a tour. By then it was getting late so we wandered up the Ave (University Ave, which goes by campus and is packed with cheap and yummy restaurants) for a more hearty dinner. The whole day was wonderful.

On the ferry to Bainbridge Island. For $13 round-trip you can take your car with you - and they pack about 50 cars (including some semi-trucks) on each ferry. During the ride to the island (about 35 min) you can get out of your car and run around the ship, buy coffee or lunch, go potty, or stand on the top deck and get your hair blown around.


The view from the ferry looking back at the Port of Seattle (downtown) - you can see the coast guard accompanying the ferry in the foreground and the large cranes for moving shipped goods (the inspiration for Star Wars' AT-ATs, you can probably see why from the picture).


When we got to the island, we inspected both the shoreline (with starfish clinging to the posts at the dock) and the forest. The starfish appeared to be alive (my dad checked on this) and were all very brightly colored.

On Friday, we split ways for a while and then met back up for some home-cooked salmon (thanks Studly Hubby!) and then wandered around our neighborhood until the rain drove us back inside for a game of Chinese checkers and some boggle. Saturday the Studly Hubby and I got to go to my Daddio's fantastic talk on using blogs in teaching, and I even asked a question!, and then we had to say good-bye at the airport.

What a great time! Thanks for visiting us Dad!

Visit from the Daddio!

My dad is visiting tomorrow for a conference that's here in town. We are having full-blown spring here and have even had a few sunny days in the past week so hopefully he'll see some of the best of Seattle (including the amazing flowering trees that are in bloom right now, the picture to the left shows some of the trees on campus here at UW). We might take him on a ferry to one of the islands - a first for us. Plus we'll feed him some yummy Seattle sushi, and do whatever else we can that sounds like fun.

To get ready for some visitors, my Studly Hubby spent the day yesterday cleaning up the apartment and getting us caught up on laundry etc. What a treat for me! I was so thrilled to come home to a clean house with nothing to stress about. Aaaahhh, what luxury...

Have a happy Wednesday everybody!

A Day in Seattle with OUR NEW FRIENDS!

After lots of hard work and many false starts, I think we finally found some new friends in Seattle. The chick works in the lab next door and went to the downhill ski adventure we went on a few weeks ago. Her husband is an engineer and they have a 2 1/2 year old kid. They live near us and like to cross-country ski, so it started with a plan to go skiing. The plan backfired when we found out how expensive it was going to be out here, and we decided instead to go to the "mothership" REI downtown to check out their ski sale and their season ski pass deals. Once we were all the way downtown, we figured we should go check out the new Olympic Sculpture Garden, which is right up against the water and has a beautiful trail going past it. Some of the sculptures were a little too abstract for me, but others (like the one pictured) got better once I got underneath them or right-up-close to them. I think I'm kind of tactile that way. We also included a fancy downtown lunch, a brief stop to watch the irish dance troup at the St. Patrick's Day affair at CityCenter, and a much lighter dinner at Whole Foods afterwards. We were POOPED at the end of the day but very happy to have some new friends.