My new car: A saga

In my current job, I have a pretty long commute that is mostly through traffic. I do what I can to avoid the worst of the traffic, but the fact of the matter is I usually spend a couple hours every week inching my way home on a ribbon of pavement with thousands of other commuters. My Prism gets decent fuel economy, but it does not have AC, so in the summer I was acutely aware of how much exhaust all these cars are dumping into the air. Bleck.

I had basically made up my mind to get an electric car next, and over the holidays we had enough time to make those shopping decisions (and by we, I mean Matt). He had settled on a Chevy Spark EV- a small hatchback electric. One little wrinkle, it isn't sold in WA. But it is sold in Oregon. After a bit more research we learn we cant just go down there and buy a new one, but we can buy a used one.

I want to tell this story, but its a bit complicated and quite drawn out, so I will try to fit it to a timeline for you. Its a little more fun if you try to imagine a laugh track being played along with it.

Dec 25: We celebrate Xmas with Betty. We tell her we might spend a few days in Portland car shopping.
Dec 26: Return home.
Dec 27: Water pressure drops- main line is leaking int he yard. We turn off water, and dig a hole to find the leak.
Dec 28: We schedule a plumber. They fail to show up. Matt watches some YouTube videos and fixes it himself.
Dec 29: Plumber comes and tells us to fill in the hole. Not to worry about the line until it gives us serious problems. (This is foreshadowing.)
Dec 31: Matt finds a used Spark online, contacts a dealer and agrees to buy it if they will ship it. They agree to overnight us the papers to make the sale final.

Jan 2: No papers in sight, but we go to Mt Rainier for the weekend. We go snowshoeing and stay at a lodge in the park. It is wonderful. The lodge has a shared shower facility; we opt to shower when we get home.
Jan 3: We go snowshoeing, and head home, fantasizing about warm showers. At home, there is a note from the city on our door: We shut of your water, it was leaking and freezing in the street. Please call the utility. (For the record, no papers from the auto dealer. Also, different leak than the one Matt fixed.)
Jan 4: Plumbers come to give us estimates on replacing the mainline. We connect a hose to the neighbors house to run water. The plumber is scheduled for a week out
Jan 6: Matt calls dealer to ask about missing paper work. They agree to over night it right away.
Jan 7: I get a ticket for expired tabs on the Prism. Which I would not be driving if my new car had arrived.

Jan 9: Paper work arrives, post marked Jan 8. We sign and return it, expecting it to arrive Jan 11.
Jan 10: Matt calls dealer. Loan goes through (Matt will call the dealer every day this week to ask various versions of whats the hold up?) The plumber comes to start the replacement process. He goes home sick
Jan 11: Replacement plumber comes to finish the job. Water is turned back on. Faucets no longer smell like hose.

Jan 14: Shipment of the car is scheduled.

Jan 16: I fly to Austin for a week. Later that afternoon, the car arrives. The dealer has not included temporary plates. Matt calls the dealer. Again.

Jan 20: Temporary plates arrive. Real plates should arrive in ~3 weeks if the dealer has done this properly. (Not real confident that this is the case.) Matt can legally test drive the car. The car we agreed to buy Dec 29.

Jan 25: I take the car for its first commute. I get rear ended on the way home. *rimshot*

Now at this point, the claim on the accident AND the actual permanent  plates are still outstanding, but we are hoping the worst is behind us. A friend suggested I needed to make amends to the old car, to clean up my car Karma and maybe make things right there.

Home ownership

Matt and I have been working on some next level adulthood lately. My commute is bad enough to motivate me to get into the office at 6:30 most mornings, which means we have a habit of early bedtimes and quiet evenings. Today I decided to try to ride my bike (and bus), which took a little longer than usual. I was trying to tell Matt the tragicomic story of my commute...
...So when the bus finally DID show up, I got my bike wedged the wrong way into the bike rack and the bus driver had to get out to help me...
But there are all these bugs flying around. Ick. Big, fat, stupid bugs. That sorta look like termites. Im still committed to this story, ...
...When I finally got the garage door open, I realized that the bike cave has a number combo lock, which I dont remember...
But Matt has moved into responsible homeowner mode, and he is walking around the porch, killing bugs, and trying to guess where they are coming from. It was hard to end on a triumphant note, but I forged ahead.
...So I realized there is another bus I can take from the freeway stop I am at, to the freeway stop close to the house, so I just got on the next bus to show up, and pedaled another mile home...
During my lame story about how I can ride a bike, Matt uncovered a burgeoning hornet next, and a Raccoon Latrine. One of two latrines he found, in fact.

Matt was feeling domestic, and wanted to deal with these things right away, and I was feeling skeeved out, so I did the research (and boiled the water), and he did the action. You can picture me shouting out the window to him: Honey, its round worm you have to be careful of. Put on some boots and a mask.

The good news is that the first bugs are not termites, but flying ants. Yes, that passes for good news here.

I had my kidney out- Hospital Edition

It's been three weeks since our big transplant surgery. In the lead up to that, Matt, Kelsey, GW, Nana, Shaoshu and I had one of the best Christmases on record. Everyone was very mellow, we ate a lot of egg dishes and candy, got to sit around the fire, sleep, laugh and enjoy eachother's company. I think everyone was trying not to be nervous about their respective roles, and it was just really nice to reconnect a little before the surgery. I had plenty of time to get in my final work outs (no missed days in December!). A couple days before surgery, Kelsey and GW and GW's parents moved into an apartment closer to the hospital. This was obviously a good choice long term, but my house felt really empty without them.

The day before surgery, I was on a liquid diet, so Matt and I had a quiet day at home. During the day, I felt quite brave, and was getting intermittent check ins from all corners. Thanks to everyone who called and texted. But as the day started to fade, and I tried to pack a bag, and think about sleeping before my 4am wake up call... well, sleep didn't come easily. Packing a bag was hard. Will I be able to wear clothes? (Answer, nah, a hospital gown is fine, but my baggiest PJs helped me get home). What will I need to sleep? (eye mask and ear plugs) Books? TV? What will I feel like watching and doing? What will Matt need to keep him busy while I am healing? Will he spend the night? In the end, we each packed basically an overnight bag, which seemed disconcertingly light. Weeks before I had assured Matt that if everything went as planned, he could go home to sleep at night, but the day before hand, I just wasn't so confident that I would feel brave in an empty hospital room at night. He readily agreed to come prepared to stay for a while.

As the evening wore on, Matt went to fix something in the garage (read: he was anxious), and GW sent me a great short video of Niel DeGrasse Tyson, which reminded me I should watch Cosmos. I've been reading Death by Blackhole, which has the right amount of funny and technical for reading until I am quite sleepy, and Cosmos has a similar tone of optimistic wonderment that helped take my mind off of what was coming.

I should probably mention here that I assumed I would be pretty much obliterated by this surgery. I was hoping I would be too drugged to remember how much pain I was in, and I was very afraid that I would be making a slow crawl back to self sufficiency. I was told recovery takes 2-6 weeks, which I was taking to mean I might be able to walk, feed myself, and possibly sit at a computer for a few hours after a month. All this kinda made me think that the start point was going to be pretty bad. I was resigned to all of this, I figured it was a trade for a fraction of the suffering GW had to deal with, I would just get it in one big dose. I had just made up my mind to go through with it, even when I wasn't feeling especially brave, like at midnight the night before surgery.

Somehow we slept, albeit briefly, because check-in was at 5:30am. No traffic at that time. I decided to look forward to seeing Kelsey and GW and his parents, and try not to think about... you know... We got settled into a room on the transplant floor, that was a couple doors down from GW. I got hugs from everyone, which was so good. You know how frail you feel after eating nothing but juice for 24 hours? Yeah, not like a brave person, so the hugs really helped. And the hospital room was just too bright, too foreign, not to get a little antsy. When they came to put my IV, the nurse asked if I wanted lidocaine to numb the spot. I started to say no, and then thought 'I'm having a hard enough time holding it together, why not just let this lady be nice to me?' I decided right then I would take anything I was offered that seemed like it would help, even if it might make me seem super wimpy. I didn't want to be tearing up over an IV, or anything else. It's courageous enough just to be the donor, without trying to be a tough guy the whole time too.

I poked my head in to GW's room, where he was cacooned under heated blankets, also trying not to be nervous. The were supposed to take me down an hour before him, so we said our goodbyes, and I waited in my bed for someone to wheel me away. Both Matt and I were feeling at little giddy with anxiety by this point. Being there, I really knew I was here to Do Some Good, everyone was being terrifically kind, but... OMG, they were about to cut my guts out! I was wheeled into the pre-op room, which was full of nervous middle age people in gowns, some of them shuffling into the restroom, most of them lying in their own hospital beds with a loved one looking on. Matt and I were trying to feel youthful and brave, when another bed rolled in- for whatever crazy reason, they brought GW down an hour early. I know that must have been torture for him, but I was SO happy to see him. He got parked next to me, so I got extra hugs from Kelsey, and we could keep joking and chatting up to the last minute. He made my nurse bring me a Bair Hug- the inflating, warm air circulating, blanket. The nurse told him that he could wear his beanie, which made us realize we should have got Renal Riot hats for the big day. My anesthesiologist stopped by to chat, and was just amazed to see us carrying on like this right before surgery. All the nursing staff and surgeons were loving it. This is where we took the high five picture that got a couple hundred FB likes (not to mention instagram). The nurse offered to set our families up in a family waiting room, where they could get updates from surgery. It felt like we were getting VIP treatment.

And then they wheeled me in. I got one last hug and kiss from Matt and Kels, and a high five from GW. With no one holding my hand or encouraging me, I suddenly felt very alone, very tiny, and not especially brave. I think the hallways to the OR might be one of the longest hallways in all of Seattle. I was told that when we got in the room, the anesthesiologist would give me something to "calm down" prior to starting surgery, so I figured I just had to get in there, and things would take their course. The OR nurse introduced herself on the way (really, we had that much time rolling down this hallway), and she told me to expect some of the other people in the room (I have no idea who now, but I was glad she mentioned that). The asked me to move myself onto the operating table. By now I almost forgot that I was still able bodied for a few minutes, and happily did the sideways scoot. They hooked up my IV, told me they were going to do some... other stuff, who knows... and I had a last minute sense of calm...

...The next thing I remember, was the recover room. A nurse had come to chat with me, and I was amazed that my mouth seemed to be able to make words. This is probably because my nearest experience with surgery was having my wisdom teeth out, when my mouth was packed with cotton. I remember thinking I felt more lucid than I expected, and wasn't in pain yet, although I don't remember having my eyes open. Someone a few beds down was crying for their mother, and the nurse told me not to worry, that person was confused. to which I said, "I understand that. I'm feeling pretty confused myself..." But I knew, I knew, my mom was nearby and was going to give me a hug really soon.

In my memory, I was magically transported to my hospital room, where people (I assume Matt, and Kelsey and my parents where there) told me I was looking pretty good. I remember thinking I felt pretty good considering. I was allowed to eat ice chips which seemed nice, I felt thirsty and my throat was a bit sore. The nurse wanted to look at my incisions. I was a little afraid to see, but there was a big pressure bandage over my hips, so the big cut was a mystery for now. The little cuts had bloody gauze under clear plastic sticker things. I would later learn that under that were steristrips, basically the sticker versions of stitches. Overall, it looked worse than I hoped, but much better than expected. I got a button to administer my own pain meds, and like I said, I had determined I didn't really need to tough out feeling discomfort. Everyone else already had heard the good news, but at some point I was told (and remembered) that GW's new kidney was working. And working really well. Hooray!

A weird thing that the night shift nurse explained to me was that some of these drugs don't necessarily make a person sleepy. By the evening, I had been up and chatting with visitors most of the day. Matt has asked for a cot to be brought in to sleep next to me. I had barely slept the night before, and I just... didn't feel sleepy. My throat was hurting more now, from the intubation, and my (wonderful) nurse brought me nasal spray for my itchy nose, and lidocaine lozenges for my throat. I sat up and watched Star Trek: Next Generation and Kung Fu Panda cartoons with a few cat naps for most of the night. When the nurse would come in and wake Matt up (I was usually awake), he would hold my hand across the gap in the beds. I tell you, there is something really comforting and encouraging about having someone hold your hand while we are in a hospital bed.

Later that night, GW called me from down the hall. He wanted to know I was doing ok. His first question on waking up was about me, but he wanted to check on me himself. And then he told me he was doing really well. The kidney was working so well, he was dropping 30mL of fluid a minute for most of the day. And he said he felt pretty good. And I gotta tell you- that was the moment that I felt like it was worth it.

The next couple days were punctuated by a number of firsts. The drugs I was on made it terribly hard for me to focus on anything, so time seemed to move shockingly slowly. By the night of surgery I stood beside my bed for the first time. The next day I was allowed to eat Jello, my first food since Saturday. I took a few steps out of bed. The surgeons came to check on me, and told me I could eat my first solid food that afternoon. I took my first pain pills by mouth. Shaoshu came to visit, Kelsey went home to sleep. I walked down the hall to see GW. He came down the hall to see me. I went to the bathroom myself. I got to use body wipes to "bathe." A resident came by to take off the big bandages, revealing a few bloody steristrips hiding tiny cuts. I learned how to cough with a pillow pressed on my stomach. I put on underwear. I started walking laps of the hallway, gingerly holding my stomach in place.

The day after surgery, the surgeons, giddy from seeing GW's success, popped into to brag about my kidney and told me I could probably go home the next day. This sounded crazy to me, but the next day, we had found a painkiller that I could tolerate, I was walking short distances confidently and could eat food. Although it seemed comfortable to have a nurse prepared to answer at the push of a button, I knew both Matt and I would sleep better at home, so we left the hospital around 2:30 that afternoon. A pre-med volunteer wheeled me down to the car. I was wearing my biggest PJs, had a pillow between my stomach at the seat belt, and we timed our exit to shortly after my dose of painkiller.

I'll give more updates on the rest of recovery later soon, but for now, I'm back to job hunting and working, and about to head over to Nana's for tea.

Matt Makes Me Crazy

 You know how there are some couples where one half of the couple has, maybe, a strong personality or a very conspicuous habit, and you can see HUGE pull that has on the other person? The sort of, "Wow, if I had to live with someone like that, I'd go nuts!" situation? Well, I think, in a way, I might be the other half of that couple- but probably not the way you are thinking.

It's not that Matt has a strong personality, but some how, living with him has desensitized me to some things I NEVER thought I'd be desensitized to. Here is just a punch list:

• While at speed on my bike, I collided with a squirrel, who was flipped into my pedals, bounced off my leg, before he ran away. I screamed a lot, (a LOT) and then rode my bike home.
• Sometimes, I deadlift.
• For more than a minute, I was considering the feasibility of running a half marathon. (I don't have any special love for running, it's just easy to do wherever you are.)
• I ran my first 10k. It took 1hr and 17 min. I repeat, I was running for an hour and seventeen minutes.
• Matt had a race that I didn't want to wait around for, so I made our friend Adam go on a 10 mile hike with me.(We saw the changing of the larches- which was beautiful)
• The previous two bullets happened on the same weekend. My hips are punishing me today. What kind of crazy person have I become??

You see, I live with someone who apparently rides 100 miles a week, who has at least one race booked for every weekend in the foreseeable future, and who gets really weird if he doesn't get a proper sweaty workout in every day. And of course, our friends support this crazy healthy lifestyle by participating in as much running, hiking and biking as is imaginable. It's inevitable that I'd get sucked into this craziness, and even forget that while I can sometimes do one epic thing, stringing them together doesn't make them easier. Ha! Of course, Matt makes all this look quite effortless. He will often ride 14 miles in a day in his commute, then run 5 miles before dinner. And maybe lift weights with me, if I need his help spotting anyway. He ran the 5K version of that 10K I ran, and he came in second. To Jeffrey. Oh, and they both decided to run the 5K, because they had a cyclocross race on Sunday. TWO RACES in ONE weekend. Living with He-man kinda makes you want to stay in shape.

But of course, now he is in the kitchen doing the dishes and singing along to MAGIC! and the pop charts like no one can hear him. ("Marry that girl, I'm gonna marry her anyway...") I suppose this marital influence goes both ways.

On perhaps a related note, I'm struggling to make my weight lifting goals (2-3 times per week, training to squat, deadlift and press my own weight). I'm about halfway there, but it's slow going. Does anyone want to be my virtual weight lifting buddy?

Short sweet nothings

Another round of vignettes from our life.

The third of 4 weddings was over the weekend. We got to show up early, help with the set-up and generally goof off with the groom's part of the wedding party. It was a beautiful spot in the woodsy part of Skagit county, and I got to catch up with some old friends from high school.

The fourth wedding will be next weekend in Toronto. Matt won't be joining me (see last entry on Death Valley).

* * *

We have an apple tree.
Like all the things in our garden, it must learn to thrive with a steady pace of benign neglect. It was pruned last year, and had precious little attention since then.
Wednesday night, we pulled down 60 pounds of apples. From the fruit left on the tree, I expect another 60 lbs.
Matt wants to press and ferment these. I would be happy to make a lot of applesauce. We will see what gets accomplished before we both leave town again.

* * *

I defended my PhD more than 3 years ago. Pretty cool right? Every so often, I will ask myself if I miss benchwork, and if I should go back and do a post-doc. This is important, because many types of funding for postdocs are only available for 5 years after defense. I still don't feel like going back to the bench, but I was reminded on another type of fellowship that is only available for 5 years after defense. It's a science policy fellowship. My application is due at the end of the month.

* * *
My work has gotten "busy." To help my boss during a course of medical leave, I was assigned to project manage a small contract to create educational simulations. Fortunately for her, my boss has had much more energy and enthusiasm for her work than anyone has predicated. As a result, but job is not busy with decision making and leadership, but composing and waiting for replies to emails that need to be coordinated. This is less glamorous than I expected.

* * *

I've been lifting weights some this summer. I have a set of hobbyist weights that Shaoshu gave me when he moved. My big lifts (squats, deadlift, bench press) are just moving into the range of weight that would allow me to put weight on the 45 lb Olympic weight bar at a normal gym.
That's kinda cool.

Mosaic of Happenings

A few short notes of no special relevance, in no particular order:

I rode my bike to work on Friday.
Matt rides his bike in every day- the 7 mile trip takes him 20-25 min each way.
My 9+ mile trip took about an hour.
My friend Adam drove me home, so we could begin our weekend adventures. Next time, tomorrow, I will be driving my bike past some of the scary/trafficy part of the ride, and still probably riding 6ish miles, in 45 min or so. But I have to ride home, too.

* * *

I've been running "a lot"* lately. I bought some new trail running shoes, since my knees report my old ones were wearing out. The first pair I bought were super light weight, looked like a unicorn puked them up (vibrant reds, purples and yellows all swirled together), and made my toes fall asleep when I ran. I traded them in for a blue pair that look like keds skate shoes. The new ones meet the approval of both my knees and toes. And ankles.

*I can claim to be running a lot based on my current Strava standings. Strava is an app that tracks your mileage, records, etc, and lets you virtually race others. I've joined a "how many miles can you run this month?" challenge every month this summer, and I've been in the  top half every time. That's right- I run more than some people!

* * *

This year we were invited to 4 weddings, 3 of them in August.
One of Matt's old roommates got married a couple weekends ago. They found a beautiful castle/B&B in Tacoma to get married in. They rented out the whole B&B for thier family, but most of the family decided to make the drive home after, so we got to stay in the castle over night.
Castle weddings are awesome.
Also, macaroons are a legit substitute for wedding cake, especially (but not only) if you are marrying a French person.

* * *

This weekend, we did a hike to Mt Shuksan and Lake Ann.The trail was storybook perfect, with long meandering creeks that had wide, flat, not-slippery stones at easy points across them, and switch backs that gently climbed us the ~2,000 feet over a ridge.
The appeal of Mt Shuksan is that there are glaciers there. I haven't seen a lot of glaciers not in Alaska. Mt Shuksan has "hanging glaciers." We tried to guess how a hanging glacier was different, and I wondered why one mountain would have more than one glacier.
The actual view looked like some bits of a big glacier were stuck on the side of this mountain- so little compared to glacier attached to ice fields.
Still totally worth the hike.

We also saw some pika.

* * *

For Labor Day weekend, I am going to a wedding in Toronto, and Matt is going to spend two weeks in Death Valley doing "summer testing" of a truck. I assume this means they stress test the truck- driving it hot and hard in the worst possible climate to see if they can kill it. This seems like the weirdest possible way to explore Death Valley, but I'm really excited for Matt to go on this trip.

I'm also excited for when he comes back- we might actually spend a weekend in our own house.
Or we might go camping. With mountain bikes.
I'm excited for both options.

Weekend of Champions

I would like to support some of the blog action that has been happening here. And while my pictures aren't as cute, there are pictures. 

As part of the whole, raise $30K for charity scheme, and a general sense of learning to lead a fitter lifestyle, we've been trying to run some 5Ks this summer.  I just completed a training program for running 5K distance (using the Pear app and a heart rate monitor- it was pretty great), so I figured we shoudl find a race. Hence, the OFIT 5K for Queen Anne Public Schools. Also the race map indicated this was a mostly flat course, along Elliot Bay's beautiful waterfront. Sign me up! And Matt! And my friend Jessica who just decided to get in to running, thanks to the Oatmeal. 

My goal was to finish in 45 min. 

I finished in about 42. 

My friend's goal was to finish.

She finished about 1 minute behind me (she let me pace her for about the first 3 miles).

Matt's goal was not to wear himself outbefore his bike race the next day.

He finished third overall and first in his age group.

So all around success. What was great about this event- and I have found many similar events in the region- was that there were a lot of children running. Or "running." This is cool, because it really mellows out whatever sense of competitiveness there might be for a 5K. And it pretty much guarantees I can pass someone. Yes, some/many/most of those people were less than 10 years old. Yes, one of those 6 year olds had a prosthetic leg. Whatever. My training worked, and I was able to run as far and as fast as I planned, and I felt great afterwards, and we went to eat eggs for breakfast. It was cool.

Oh, and Matt was a ribbon.  

Today, Sunday, was the final race in the mountain bike series Matt has been riding in this winter/spring. This is a fun event, with cash prizes to top finishers, and the seasons awards are given out. Matt wanted to do well in this race, in general because he has been doing well this seasons, but in particular because of the chance to win some $$. I took a cow bell out and cheered people on. Or tried.

Let me give you a sense of what spectating mountain biking is like. So the riders are launched in groups by age- ~10 under 18 riders, ~12 under 29 riders, 6 under 40 riders, etc... the launch 2 minutes apart. The spread of talent and pace is such that the fastest over 50 rider will definitely pass the slowest under 18 rider... and everyone else in the field. So when Matt starts a race like this, he looks at passing ~26 other guys. He has a decent start (meaning he launches and elbows his way in front of most of the guys in his age group). 

There was one very technical section that was easy for spectators to watch, with these guys bounding over tree roots, then landing and turning immediately on a gravel road and shooting off uphill into the woods again. It's 10 minutes from the start line. I try to put out of my mind that there seems to be a lot of minor injury in this event- guys regularly laugh about scrapped and bloodyknees or elbows. About 6 riders in, and under 29 rider jumps out of the trees, and his bike slides sideways on the gravel out from under him. He is embarassed, but looks over his shoulder (no oncoming riders, just a small crowd of spectators who start clapping when he stands up), grabs the bike and starts running to flatter ground. This guy will definitely have gravel in his shins.

Matt goes through in a tight group with 4 or so other riders. The person at the front of his group looks like he might be 15, but it's hard to guess other ages. For each of them, as the come flying out of the woods, thier tires skid but the hold it together and continue on. I'm about to go to the next spot for spectating when another pair of kids come out of the woods. The first makes the transition with enough grace, but the second does not. The rider is down, and I can see he is tangled up in his bike enough that spectators lean in to give him a hand. I see one of the organizers go sprinting down the hill to catch a first aid kit, and in the meantime, someone has stepped into the woods to tell the next riders to watch out for the kid laying in the trail. Shudder.

The kid was fine. I saw him cooling down later with an icepack taped to his knee while he pedaled around. 

The general take away is that mountain bike spectating is boring and then scary. And then boring again if you are lucky.

Anyway, Matt came in 3rd overall on this race. He won $40 for this feat.

 

 Third overall was also first in his age group. He won $40 for this. And another medal.

 

After a season of racing, Matt was first in his category for (Intermediate riders, aged 30-39). 

He got a sweet plaque. This will probably go with the rest of his hardware, gathering dust in various corners of his office and garage.

Dinner to the Shelter

This week Nana agreed to help me take dinner to the shelter in Redmond. They have recently increased their bed count, so now we take dinner for 20-25 hungry young people, which is bordering on too much. Well, perhaps not too many people, but it requires a lot of planning, and careful choices about menu. And you know who I want on my team when there is a cooking project that requires planning and choices? Nana. This week I decided to go with pulled pork, which is crockpotted in 2 crockpots, baked potatoes and salad. My fatal error was to also deciding to cook an apple crisp.

I picked up Nana at 5, and we got back to my house to start with dinner around 5:30. We figured we'd assemble the crisp, cook it, and then do the potatoes (which I foil wrapped beforehand), so that the potatoes would still be warm at dinner. It's ok to laugh a little at this point- we need to deliver dinner at 8:30, and that stuff is simply not all going to happen in that three hour window. Nana and Matt started slicing apples while I made the top and preheated the oven. The crisp went in the oven around 6:30, and I was already starting to think better of my plan. Instead of turning the oven up (since a crisp can pretty much cook between 350 and 425), I just threw the potatoes in there as well. This will get us to the punchline in about an hour.

Next, we shredded 16 pounds of meat. I was feeling good about this- it was tasty, and for once seemed like plenty of food. At about 7, I nuked up some lasagna and the three of us had a simple dinner. Matt kept bragging to Nana that this was special, I usually forget to feed us on the nights I take dinner to the shelter.

At 7:30, I got up from the table, ready to start thinking about how we would move all this stuff, and wondering why we weren't overwhelmed with the luscious smells out of the oven. Picture this, I have a 15x11x4 foil pan brimming with apple crisp on the bottom rack, surrounded by foil wrapped potatoes on all sides, and above that is a tray of more foil wrapped potatoes, which is also surrounded by potatoes. (Dinner for 25, right?) The edges of the crisp seemed bubbly but the middle was... still crisp. Gulp. I figured, if the potatoes were done, I would just pull them out of the way and the heat would get more even in the oven. Worse news, the potatoes are also crisp. My eyes are getting bulgy now.

There is a moment, usually about 7:30, when we are planning to take dinner to the shelter and I think, "Nevermind. This won't work. Is it too late to cancel?" This was that moment.

Nana breezes in to the kitchen and says, "Hm, why don't you turn up the oven? And can you nuke those potatoes?" and then she goes on to cleaning up from all the dinner and cooking. Yes and Yes!  By this point Matt has looked up a real recipe for making baked potatoes (1hr at 425), and we crank up the heat. He starts pulling potatoes out of their foil jackets in pairs and throwing them in the microwave for a couple minutes at a time, then rewrapping them. Matt is watching the clock like a hawk, but I'm confident that dinner can be served eventually. I start loading up the car. Juice. Buns. BBQ sauce. Butter and sour cream. Lasagna pan full of pork. Salad. The longer the potatoes have been in the oven, the less nuking they need. The crisp is starting to soften and smell lovely. We get the last soft potato in the car and hurtle down to Redmond to serve.

I'm feeling grateful that I can afford to donate dinner, and that I have family to support me in the effort, but still a little bashful that we might be a couple minutes late and a fair bit frazzled. When we arrive, the shelter is dark. For one second, I wonder if I misread the calendar, but no, homeless shelters don't take days off. Turns out, we aren't the only ones feeling flustered tonight, the key has gone missing, and the staff are waiting for someone to let them in.

As we wait patiently, more people start hanging out in this dark parking lot, and I'm feeling really glad that we have a trunk full of tasty food to share. Once the door is open, we breeze in like this is no big deal, unpacking and delivering while the now flustered staff and trying to recover from their shortened prep time as well. By the time we left, it seemed like a huge crowd was waiting outside. Several of the guests thanked us for bringing dinner, and we slinked back to out nice warm homes. The next day I got an email that they had more people than beds that night, but they were able to offer dinner, even seconds, to everyone who was there that night.

Tiny Little Home Projects

This weekend was a pretty abysmal downpour, and since none of our friends were up for much adventure, we somehow found ourselves making a list of things to get from the hardware store. I should have known that "stuff we got at the hardware store" would quickly convert into "projects that Matt finished." Nothing major, nothing you could get a bid for, or would go to a homeshow about, or would even register at Mom and Dad's house as an update. But it's kinda a big deal at our house.

Here, I present the finished products. (Note, I did help a bit, but some of this stuff really only needs one motivated pair of hands.)

Project 1: Our bathroom sink is crowded.

 We have nice enough bathroom in the master bedroom, the lights and mirrors (both over the sink and on the closet door behind) make it bright in there. But the big mirror behind the sink is just that. Just a mirror, no medicine cabinet.

Fig 1. Bathroom Before picture. Notice the stuff on the counter, and the lame two handled sink.

Sure, there is places for bathroom stuff in the closet behind there, but I don't like digging in the closet everytime I put lotion on my face. Or brush my teeth. Or need an antacid. Or most anything, according to figure 1, since I leave all that stuff out on the counter.

Ever the engineer, Matt suggested we install a medicine cabinet. We went back and forth on what that might require, and finally landed on a  small cabinet that would mount above the outlets (fig 2). It was pretty easy to install, and even easier to fill up.

Project 2: Two handled sinks make temperature control annoying.

We actually have two major needs for our bathroom sink.
1) Typical hand/face/teeth washing behavoir.
2) Leaving a slow drip for the cat to drink from.

Our two handle sink was lame at both. It's a major event to get the temprature right with the two handles. And the handles were wobbly, which made adjusting to a drip a hassle, both for the human adjusting and the feline anxiously waiting a drink.

Fig 2. Sitting beneath a glamorous medicine cabinet, the cat waits impatiently for a drink from the new faucet.

The solution was a new, single handled faucet. In brushed nickel, since that shows fewer smudges. The cat is reasonably impressed.

Project 3: This kitchen outlet is hideous.

We had rationalized that this outlet, and the GIANT security box that sat next to it, were part of the home security system, which necessitated some rewiring (fig 3). However, that has been removed, and let's be honest, what it left is pretty shoddy. I was never going to think much of it, but that's because I don't relish making things tidy (especially if that thing is the kitchen, apparently. I can't change who I am.)

Fig 3. Probably not live wires sticking out of this kitchen outlet. Right?

And let's just discuss that motion detector switch- it should turn on the light (Project 4) in the kitchen. When left on auto, it sometimes turns on the middle of the night to notify us that the cat is on the counter, but otherwise fails to turn on when we are flailing in the dark trying to walk across the kitchen without tripping on the above cat. Instead, Matt installed a new switch, a new outlet, and safely tucked away the remaining electrical mysteries. He also covered the gaping hole that was left by the security system.

Fig 4. A tidy outlet and switch combo with hardly any possibility of electrocution.

Project 4: This kitchen light is so terrible we never use it.

Partly because of the weirdness of the outlet, partly because the other lights in the kitchen are sufficient, and mostly because this canister light just was sucky, we never used it. Matt managed to get it arranged to direct light in relevant places, but it didn't hold that position well, so the canisters would sometimes focus beams of light in the cabinet.

Fig 5. The terrible canister light balanced so that it projects light two directions. Not quite the directions you'd want, but near as it gets. Also note the gaping hole below the counter, resolved in Project 3.

It's also pretty dated looking. It took a little time to find a light arrangement that we thought would improve this space. We ended up with a track-ish light (each bulb can be redirected, but the distance between them is set). These lights highlight the one workspace that isn't adequately illuminated by the other box fluorescent. And it doesn't look dated. And with the new switch, I will probably actually use it.

Fig 6. Vastly superior kitchen light, in a well lit kitchen.

 Matt has once again proven himself to be a handy guy around the house. The faucet install included a new drain plunger, which escalated to replacing other janky looking gaskets to prevent future leaks. When I asked him where he learned about plumbing, he said, "Learned about plumbing? It's not rocket science..." Putting tubes together so they don't leak seems pretty magical to me. You can assume his attitude about electrics is similar.

The bonus of these projects (to him) is that he got a new set of drill bits, and revealed that he needs a new electric drill. (His chuck is maybe bent?) I (or Dad) can get this for his next gift exchange holiday. I'm confident leaving this note here, since he never reads the blog.

Also, we got our first postcard from Japan! Remember back when Dad didn't get to see the Seahwaks win the Superbowl? That's when he sent us a card from Mt Fuji.

Nana Stories

One of the neat things about having Nana nearby is that I get to hear stories from her. Not just the major, life changing stories, like how she met Papa, or what it was like to have kids in Juneau's early days, but normal stories.  I wanted to capture a few of them here for my siblings/ nephew and niece.

Last weekend over dinner I was talking about reading the Monuments Men (about the effort to save art, artifacts and monuments during WWII), and I confessed that I know embarrassingly little about world history. Did you know that Germany tried to invade Russia? Which is why Russia ended up in the war? And that we weren't exactly on the same side? Matt and I bemoaned that Juneau schools never seemed to take history very seriously, so now we are just ignorant adults. Nana said she also didn't get much world history. In high school she was on the annual commitee (yearbook), and she has this very sweet, very dull world history teacher. Should would just come in the class, flash him a smile and say, "I have to work on some things for the annual. Can I do the assignment next week?" and he would let her out of class. Pretty much all year. Seriously. I never pegged Nana for ditching class.

Earlier this week, we were talking about hot water heaters, and Nana reminisced about how when she was growing up, their hot water tank was basically uninsulated, so you could feel on the site how much and how hot the water was. (I assume Nana's Mom had impervious hands as well.) Nana said her mom always seemed to have infinite energy. I have heard he describe the garden that kept the family fed all year, especially when beans, fruits or other things were ready for canning. Because it was a large garden, there were huge spurts of urgency where Grandma Sandlin would have both Nana and Auntie Jeanne in the kitchen, canning for hours. Nana said she could see out the window that it was blue skies and sunny, but she was always caught in the sweltering kitchen heat. And at the end of a major canning effort, her every energetic mother would pat the hot water heater and say, "Come on girls, we still have enough hot water to do a load of laundry." I thought of how ambivalent I can feel about laundry when I'm tired, and then she told me how they DID laundry: manually. They would fill up two tubs, one with soap and a rinse that they would run it through a ringer, and they drop it into the second rinse, with "bluing" and then ring that out, and then hang it all out to dry in the sun. Just hearing that makes me want to flop into a frazzled domestic mess, but she said her mom never wanted her dad to see how much work it was. He liked to see her looking calm and relaxed when he came home from work, so she always made time to clean up from all these things, including scrubbing the floor, brushing her hair and changing her apron so that when her dad got home things were calm and quiet. I asked if she was ever able to achieve that standard with her own kids, and she just laughed.

We had planned to see her and Jerry this week to have dinner and go to the movie Saving Mr. Banks. Due to my poor planning (oh, the movie starts when?) and our general lack of urgency, we missed the movie, but it was nice to have dinner with Nana and Jerry. Just like "old times" before the folks moved here.

Oh, and I feel like bragging. As I mentioned we had a really great time at MOHAI a couple weeks ago, and when I mentioned this to Nana and Jerry, they thought it sounded cool, too. So cool, in fact, that they got one of the buses to take a load of people down there for the day. And they ALSO enjoyed it a lot.

Matt has been busy this week. He gave a talk on Friday, and is gearing up for the mountain bike race series. This means making changes and updates to the bike, that seemed to involved new wheels, and new cables, and many hours in the garage. He really enjoys that.

Winter Wonderland!

For the last couple of years, Matt and I have managed to get in one winter camping trip. We usually go with Matt's bestie, but this year his family is too busy, so we decided we should just go ourselves. We booked a cabin at Wallace Falls State Park, as scant hour from our house, and figured we could have an early Valentine's weekend escape.

Things being as they are, this was exactly the sort of week where if we had not already made a reservation, there was no way we'd be going camping, even for one night, even an hour from home. It was a busy week, Matt has been getting "additional opportunities" (a management joke) at work, and I hadn't been feeling that well. Neither of us had any time for planning, but come Friday night we went to REI to buy ourselves a campstove, and Matt ran to the store for groceries (bagels, goldfish, and frosted animal cookies). The forecast seemed like it might be too cold for sitting around a campfire, so we opted not to pick food that should get cooked over a fire, and went for stuff we could cook on the stove. We rationalised that we could hike the falls on Saturday, and either slow poke our way home on Sunday, or admit defeat and come back whenever we were ready to wimp out.

Our evening activities included cataloging the species in the animal cookies.
Is the lower right a pig?

The hike up Wallace Falls is not that arduous, but I was feeling ... very... slow. The 5 mile, low elevation gain hike took more than 3 hours. We got to stop and look at lots of things. The tiny ice towers that form when water freezers under mud. The "snow" that forms along the river canyon from the splash of the falls. The icecicles that crowned every rock in the river. It was a really beautiful hike.

It was cold. He didn't want to pose for this picture.

Since I knew I was going to be moving slow, and that it was cold, I wore my heavy winter coat, and a layer of thermals under my clothes. I was quite toasty, and pulled off my hat and gloves when we were moving. Matt, however, always has a super high metabolism and forgot what cold is all about. He was wearing highly ventilated plastic pants, and a fleece he has had since high school that uses a technology he calls "wind accelerating." His hat and gloves were firmly in place the whole time, and only in the last mile did he concede to putting the raincoat he had (along with several other other layers) in his backpack.

The trail head to the falls is also where our cabin was. Our last winter camping was in a yurt, which is basically a big tent wearing a warm coat. It has a light bulb near the door, and an outclassed radiator chugging along all night. Last year's yurt slept 5, with a bunk bed and futon, but once we put a couple backpacks in there, the place was full. I had expected some variation of that, but this cabin was posh. It had TWO rooms. The thermostat was set when we arrived, so it was quite toasty. There were curtains on all the windows, and adorable log furniture, including the futon, bunk, end table, dining table and chairs. By this point, we were both happy to sit inside and read, slipping out as far at the porch (yeah, porch) to boil water for tea and warm up our soup. Well after dark, maybe 7?, Matt stepped out to rinse the stove of our soup, and mentioned that there was some "slow rain" falling outside. Sometime after that we realized that "slow rain" falling in the cold was snow!

Snow in Western Washington! Everyone Panic!

Actually, sitting in a toasty cabin with nothing to do but my knitting (and timing Matt to see how many pistachios he could eat in 60 seconds) was the perfect place to be on a snowy evening. The half inch or so that accumulated was still there in the morning. Matt has plenty of snow driving experience, even in his sporty little car, so our only concern was that outside of the state park, the weather may have prompted an Armageddon level of panic and mayhem. It actually seemed quite mellow. Wallace Falls is off highway 2, so most of the outbound traffic was heading up the mountains to ski, and the westboard traffic was light. There was a bakery in Sultan, WA keeping busy in spite of the weather. And we opted to stop at the Reptile Zoo in Monroe on the way home, too. (Did you know that not all lizards have limbs?? If your snake has eyelids, it might not be a snake...) It was a cool museum, that maybe Tyler would enjoy (unless one of his parents has a phobia about snakes, in which case, forget I mentioned it). It was kept nice and warm for the cold blooded critters there.

Two headed turtle at the Reptile Zoo, obviously.

There seemed to be even more snow- like a whole inch!- at our house. It's melting slowly, and I expect the pandemonium will have subsided in time to make it to work tomorrow.

Updates for the Oversees Readership

Since the parents are inaccessible by phone for the next few months, I thought I might get some leverage out of the blog in place of long, rambly emails.

As the parents were leaving on their grand adventure, my in-laws were in town for a few days. They came for the boat show, after a great adventure of their own to Southeast Asia. (Being retired sounds awesome...). [Note to parents: eating brains, raw blood, or "washed" lettuce are all perfectly valid ways to get terribly ill.] We went to MOHAI, a very awesome Seattle-centric history museum. It had boats, and old Seattle history, and wartime history, and modern stuff too. I'm hoping I can take Nana and Jerry some tiem this month. Matt's step-mom made greek food (yay!), and we all got to watch the Superbowl together.

Over the summer, Mom had helped Nana and I make what seemed like an absurd quantity of freezer jam. It's super yummy, but I just don't eat that much jam these days. The freezer jam was a big hit with pancakes, and the freezer Raspberry jam was to DIE for on the Trader Joe's flourless chocolate cake we had with the Greek food. Even though I managed to not cook even slightly all weekend, it made me feel like a domestic hero to have my own jam on hand.

Oh, and I may have mentioned the Superbowl was played over the weekend. I dunno if you were watching, but the SEAHAWKS WON! There had been a lot of excitement, even on our (suburban, working class) campus, with potlucks, and photo-ops and the like. We watched at Jeffery's house, where we had a huge screen, lots of snacks and a pretty mellow watching experience. This was ideal, since by the half, it was hard to pretend we were biting our nails for the outcome anymore- there was plenty of time to catch up. We went back to our suburban home where not much was happening, but I relished seeing the parties downtown, including Seattle's no-jay walk riots. I know not all my family loves sports, but in this day and age of tv-on-demand and personalized everything, it's really awesome to be able to share a story like that with a large community.

While WA has been spared of most of the brutal winter weather that has been visiting on the midwest and east coast (and TX sometimes, too), this week is actually getting pretty nippy. I mention this only because Matt and I have plans to be camping this weekend in a cabin at Wallace Falls. WE were planning to do a little hiking and a little eating by campfire, but we may opt for a lot of drinking cocoa in our sleeping bags if it stays below freezing.

Updates are still coming in on the fundraising blog- 75% there with Mom's help taking dinner to the shelter last week! I'm starting to feel like when I am done with this crazy project I am doing NOTHING for at least another year. Turns out, $30,000 is a big number.

Summer Fun

Yes. We have been busy. Blogging is feeling more like a winter sport, more like watching tv, play video games and cooking in doors. But let you think I've forgotten to blog, or that I might be working too hard to blog (ha!), a brief photo update.

In no particular order, we have:
Taken Mom and Dad to their first Mariners game.
Been to the Olympic National Forest to visit friends from Pittsburgh
Gone camping in the Cascades
Not killed everything in the garden
Gone hiking- even once with Mom and Dad
Gotten a lot of sunshine.

It's good.

Our new Worm Box

Remember that time I tried to keep worms?  Remember, it was going to be a really enlightened way to deal with kitchen scraps, except I had no idea what I was doing, and the worms had to live in the basement which was too hot, then too cold, then too wet and somewhere in the middle we unleashed a torrent of fruit flies on out little duplex the horrors of which cannot be imagined. Matt (rightfully) banished the worms outside, where they eventually froze, long before turning any quantity of household waste into dirt.  (So yes, there was a bucket for of frozen, rotting food with worm carcasses on our back porch for much too long.)

Anyway, forget all that.  I've gotten from training in worm handing from an experienced vermiculturist- my mother-in-law. She promised us works and send us hardware, and we just recently put together the box.  Just as I was on the verge of caving and buying new wood, Matt decided we could put a box together out of old pallets, and found a bunch being given away. I was all enthusiasm until I realized how hard it is to break apart pallets. Matt soldiered on an knocked together a mighty nice looking box, complete with a fairly solid looking recycled lid (and hinges!).  This weekend, as part of our Mother's Day exchange, we took home a box of worms and some starter stuff for worms.  They got settled in their in the box yesterday (Fig 1).

Fig 1. The new Worm box, made of re-purposed pallets.

So let's discuss some of the design improvements of the current box.
1) It has no bottom.  It will drain directly into the soil, the only barrier is a wire hardware cloth, which keeps out mice.
2) Wood is more breathable than plastic. The moisture thing was a serious issue for the last worms, because they were sealed in a sweaty plastic coffin. We should have worked around that this time.
3) I know what worms eat.  Betty informs me that these red worms don't do much to orange peels or onion skins. Those were the main components of the first box- which, since no one was eating them, drove up the moisture and smell. We won't be sending the worms food the don't like, especially while they are getting settled.
4) The box is outside. The requirements for compost that lives beside the garage are much more forgiving that the compost in your laundry room. This is perhaps the biggest key to success.

And, since I've figure out how to add picture from my phone to the blog, may I present, a rhododendron bush that is ready to explode with color despite a steady diet of clouds (Figure 2), and my first ever rose that I grew in my own garden and it is so big and so red you may think you've never truly seen color before (Figure 3).

Fig 2. Our Rhododendron begins to bloom. It's magenta!

Figure 3. My rose. The image doesn't quite capture a hue of red so deep your eyes ache.

Perhaps more garden pictures can be shared once the rest of the things get settled. I like how lively they look in their little pots on the porch so far, but I'm trying not to get too attached in case I've misjudged what can be grown here.

First 5K of the Year

Matt and I ran (or "ran") a 5K this weekend.  This was Betty's idea, she was going to walk a 5K in Concrete to support the local Lion's Club Booster, and since I'm trying to find ways to support family and friend's communities efforts, we decided to go.  I thought I might walk, but the weather was wet, which made me think I should "run," you know, to finish "faster."

Let's discuss my running quickly. (Or maybe just briefly, since my running quickly doesn't come up much.)  At various times in the past, I've thought, "I should run," and this idea is almost immediately rejected by by lungs and legs. A coworker has been running, and since we have this fitness challenge, at work, I thought I should go with her.  She runs really slow.  And you know what, if I go really slow, I can run.  Or jog.  Or possibly wog.  You know those skinny late-middle aged women who get all decked out in high visibility fluorescent spandex and then go for runs so slow, you wonder why they are even wearing work out clothes?  I'm a little slower than that.  And I'm totally ok with it.

Let's just compare that to Matt's running.  Matt, my dearly beloved, wear a heart rate monitor when he runs.  He will occasionally let his bestie talk him into going into a 5, no oops, 8 mile trail run up a mountain. When Matt saw last year's times for this 5K, he simply said, "I'm pretty sure I could beat that." 

Needless to say, Matt and I never run together.  Matt thinks running together would be nice, but I am much happier running and suffering on my own then listening to his chipper banter about how he is almost warmed-up while I'm already too out of breathe to tell him I don't want to talk about how wind sprints might help me.  It's one of those secrets to our happy marriage: we don't run together.

But, we can run at the same event.  This was an out and back kind of race- run away from the school 2.5K, then come back 2.5K. IT was paired with a 10K, where lean people would run out 5K, and back 5K. Now, I'm a "running my own race" type, but I was hoping to see racers returning, since this would indicate that at least someone made it near the halfway point.  I finally saw some kids running back (yes, actual children), eventually followed by Matt. As he passed, he rolled his eyes and said, "I forgot to turn around." When I got back, 45 min from the start time (a personal best, thank you), Matt was there to greet me.  I got a participation ribbon (Woo!), and we went to get some water before watching to see Betty come in.

We compared notes: I was not passed by the 83 year old trail walker, but I'd been dropped by most everyone else who ran.  After he forgot to turn around (because he was keeping up with people running the 10K), he had to run pretty hard to make up the time.  He had to pass several children, and a guy with one leg.  He has been hoping to post a personal best (since he is in great shape from Mt Bike Racing this winter), but that was not to be.  I finally asked him what he did with his ribbon, and he sheepishly pulled out his SECOND PLACE MEDAL from his pocket.  Yup, second place, behind a 15 year old, and in front of 12 year old and a man running with a blade in place of his foot.

I want to Master Cakes

I don't think I've really ever baked a cake from scratch.

I'm sure I could. The mechanics aren't that different that other things that I have baked. But I haven't ever taken the time. Now that I have this super fancy kitchenaid that my big brother got me, I feel compelled to bake ambitious things.  Matt and I were brainstorming "things that should be baked" one night, and he started riffing on cakes. Carrot Cake. Yellow Cake.  Princess Cake.  And all with the niave confidence that they will be easy and totally worth the effort.

Now would be a great time for someone to chime in in case this is actually false.

And then I got the crazy idea (I'm having a lot of these lately), that when I recruit people to take part in my 30 for my 30th project with group volunteer things, I should pretend it's my birthday party and offer cake.  I was specifically imagining that I've talked my friends into some trail maintenance which turned about to be a terrible idea, and everyone is brutally exhausted and frustrated, and then I whip out a carrot cake and suddenly everyone is glad they are helping! That could work, right?

As Nana says, if you don't hear about it again, don't ask!

Mt Bike Racing

This is going to be a year of bikes.  I can tell.  Our favorite 3 year old is on a two wheeled (pedal) bike these days, and he bravely rides on trails.  Nearly every day, I'm told.  Since hiking with short legs is a bit harder, it seems likely that more of our group summer adventures will be mountain biking.

And you don't have ask twice if Matt would like to go for a mountain bike ride.  All this talk of "rides" and "trails" and "mud" and "huge scary logs" got him thinking about mountain biking in Janurary this year.  Not that he ever stops riding out doors, he really does ride 12 months a year here.  But other people start organizing events in the late winter.  He started a mountain bike series a couple weeks ago that will last until mid-spring.  These are fun because he gets to ride in different parks, and compare his time to others and improve his own performance. (Or so I'm told. Racing sounds awful to me.)

His first race was in Tacoma.  He made his bestie Jeffrey come with to spectate. The start line was staggered by race class, so all the Sport (faster than beginner, slower than expert) riders launch by age group.  They ride 3 laps in a winding park.  He passes people, people pass him. They had fun, and went to a hearty lunch as soon as Matt crossed the finished line.  Some hours later he pulled up the race results online and said, "Um. Oh. I guess I got third?"

Matt has a fairly binary approach to being competitive.  He can go have some rides with other people and push himself and that's cool. He is pretty laze-faire about going to these events when it's just for a ride. But as soon as he placed, I knew he was committed to the series.  Fortunately, so was Jeffery.  (Bike racing is cool, but it is in lots of different far away places that are nice to have a co driver for,)

The second race was also in Tacoma. Again, the staggered start, with multiple classes on the track at the same time.  I'm told it's hard to pay attention to whether the person passing you has grey hair or acne, so both of the guys felt like they did OK, but couldn't judge their rankings.

When the race results came in, Matt had taken second place. Jeffrey came in the top half, easily. Now there is talk of series points, and the next race is next week.  They guys speculate that most of these riders are road bikers who are getting off the street for a few hours because they both pass other riders on the technical parts (read: rooty, dropsy, chasms). I'm sure it has nothing to do with them both riding this type of terrain for most of their lives.

You can check out pictures here. Most of those people aren't Matt. You can tell some of these riders are out of their element.  How can you tell they are doing it wrong?  Both tires should stay on the ground (#728 is my favorite).  Here is a nice one of Matt just doing what he likes doing.

(I feel I should add the Matt says people crash here because they rode it too slow.  Wheee!)

Updates

I just posted the 30 for my 30 blog link on Facebook, so it officially feels like there is no turning back.  I'm pretty pumped that you guys have been excited about this too, because I can't really imagine how I am going to meet this goal myself.

Because.... well, we are busy.  I mean, owning a home seems to take a lot of time.  Matt is re-keying the house today. I'm learning about hot tub chemistry, and we might even get some laundry done. Oh, and we were both exhausted from another long week at work.  I'm ready to start working from home more again though.

The big news at work this week is that we got a new name.  This means I have a new work email address, a new mouse pad and a T shirt with the new name.  I take it for other people it was more of a transition.  New templates, new color palates, server transitions and some online redirects.  I got a series of emails over the week begging me to update my voicemail, contact info, email signature etc, which seems silly.  I've never used my phone, and I only ever email people on my team.  But, it's been interesting to see how something like a cohesive brand identity comes together.  (It's also super easy to see how it would fall apart, so I updated what I could.)

Ok, back to domestic projects.  I would love to finish putting my office together before I start acting like stacks of things on boxes was the look I was going for.

On homeownership

We own a home now.

I'm not really sure what I expected to be different.  We've never really felt held back by renting, but there is something quite different about being in your place.  For starters- it is WAY nicer than any place we've ever rented.  And of course ownership means we can do whatever we want with it.  If it weren't for the fact that it is a lot of work, I might have repainted all the rooms just because they are mine. 

And there are some adjustments to make too.  We have hardwood floors in the kitchen (I know, right?) and it turns out, that unlike linoleum, you can scratch that. I discovered this by dragging heavy boxes on the floor. Nice.

We've gotten quite used to living in homes with... character.  And usually you just learn to cope with or work around the fact that the space heater upstairs and the microwave can't run at the same time, or you trip the beaker that has all that PLUS the alarm clocks PLUS the computers.  No big, just run back upstairs before you microwave anything.  But in our house, we don't have to work around that stuff.  It can be fixed.  The first day in the new house Matt tripped a GFCI outlet (the kind with the "Test/ Reset" buttons) running the bathroom fan.  He quickly figured out this was a problem with the outlet, and we went to the hardware store, bought a new one and replaced it.  Boom.

And the first time we ran the shower the tub filled up.  Matt ran to the hardware store (McLendon's is clearly going to be our new weekend hang out spot for a while) and picked up a drain snake.  We are fearless about fixing.  However, he had a really hard time getting the snake into the drain.  Weirdly hard.  Until he realized that the drain wasn't clogged, it was shut.  That's right, a bathtub with a drain  plug that actually works. I thought it was a myth.

Although it feels like we might never be done unpacking, Matt put up our boxes and packing materials on Craigslist tonight.  I'm looking forward to getting all that cardboard out of our living room, it will feel much more like we've accomplished something.

The move itself went fine.  Mom and Dad brought an extra truck so we could haul huge quantities of things quite quickly- we moved in about 5 hours (with one pizza break).  Mom and Dad also helped us get so on top of our packing that we went back Sunday to finish cleaning, not finishing moving like I'd expected.  And Jeffery's whole family turned up to help, and Shaoshu even went back for another truck load of garage related detritus that would have take a year to pack out in our cars.  Hooray for help!

It is exhausting, and a little stressful to have all my things in boxes (and wonder why I have so many boxes).  But we are trying to take our time settling in, get it right this time.  I don't know if we'll be in this house forever, but we will probably be here a while.  No reason to put up with our usual poor organization.

So... we bought a house

Funny story, actually.  Remember how a couple months ago I mentioned Matt and I were warming up to the idea of home ownership?  Turns out, it is pretty easy to just take the plunge.  Some friends here had been talking about it, so we had been comparing notes as we were both shopping for mortgages.  That really got the momentum started.  Then we thought, well, the easiest way to learn about the next step is to talk to an agent.  You know, learn a little more about the community, get a feel for what our price range would get us.  We just wanted to more the conversation forward. We ended up working with Mom and Dad's agent, because she was great with them and really knows the area well.  And we've known her since college.

This was the end of October.  The summer peak was well past, and there is certainly some evidence that the Seattle housing market is regaining strength.  There weren't many homes in the locations and price range we were looking at, and those that were there tended to move quickly.  We warmed up pretty quickly to the idea that we weren't going to have a lot of time to think about the choice to make an offer.  "Sleeping on it" was just not in the cards.  That's fine.  We weren't in a rush to buy a place, so if we missed a few good ideas, that's ok.  It might even give us a chance to learn about the next steps in the whole process before we really get beholden to a home.

On maybe our second weekend looking at homes, we saw a place that seemed like it could work.  I mean, we have no idea what we are doing, but this place seemed like the right size and it's near our current place, so the location didn't feel like a gamble.  Why not roll the dice and put in an offer?  It'll give us a chance to learn what that is like, right?  That would be good, right, since we are going to have to do this a whole bunch of time. There were three offers on this house, so we pretty much wouldn't have to go through with this. WRONG.  Offer accepted.  Oh.  Now we get to learn about all the other stuff you do when you are buying a house.  Like call your mortgage guy in a panic to explain you'd like to close in 6 weeks that have 12 holidays in between. And second guess why you've been living in this neighborhood in the first place. Or suddenly learn everything about home interiors when you go for an inspection.

And this is when it started getting messy (as if blithely putting an offer in on a house your first week at a new job doesn't seem dicey enough).  The inspection... wasn't that good.  It wasn't terrible mind, but the home wasn't worth what we had offered to pay for it.  And the seller didn't feel that this was something they needed to help us with- they did have other offers.  While I was battling with this uncomfortable decision (Keep the house and be up to our eyebrows in debt and home repairs?  Will we ever find anything better? Maybe this is just what buying a home is like), Matt was being strategic.  He identified a nearby home that seemed similar, but less likely to have the issues of the first home (which needs new roof, water heater and furnace).  He and the agent went to look at it, and, even though it cost more, they both felt like the price was justified because it was in better condition.  By this time, Matt knew how to look for the service record on a water heater, right?

So, with a week to make up our mind on the first home, I was convinced to go look at the new place.  It is... in the same cul-de-sac as the first one.  That felt a little weird.  And it is really huge- and I wanted a tiny house (low foot-print, utilities, maintenance etc).  But... it was really nice.  And affordable.  And had the location benefits of the first place.  (We can walk to Trader Joe's!) Sure, that seems good and all, but the first house looked nice too, when we went there.  An inspection will probably reveal $20,000 of imminant repairs.  Our agent- who I must trust implicitly- said there is only one was to know for sure.

We took a deep breath and put an offer in on the second house.

My heart aches when I think there were a couple days when we were talking out of both sides of our mouths about owing some three quarters of a MILLION DOLLARS in Totem Lake real estate.  I trusted out agent to find a way where we wouldn't end up paying anyone all that money.  The second offer was accepted. We had an inspection performed immediately.  And the results were... fine.  Really.  The house needs CO monitors.  And the fan in the bathroom is janky.  We had been told about the age of the water heater, and that was negotiated in.  There was nothing in this house was could even come close to $20,000 in repairs.  Matt rejected the negotiations on the first house at the inspection- even if we opted not to take the second house, it confirmed the hypothesis that not all houses are expensive disasters in progress.

We decided to move ahead. We are buying house #2- the bigger house, the nicer house, the house with the good roof.  Yeah, that's gonna be our house. Our closing date is currently January 24.  This is a much longer time frame, as well, which is giving us time to think about being home owners.  What are we gonna do with all those rooms?  And space?  And the hot tub.  Will we ever do anything but sit in the hot tub?