I Saw a Hawk

I was driving to the parking lot on campus when I saw this hawk sitting on a park bench. I stopped to watch him for awhile. It was cool to see him just hanging out.

I hurried to my parking spot and was disappointed to see that he was gone when I walked back to the bench.

The birds were freaking out, so I looked in the trees and found him hanging out up there. The hawk was quite impressive.

Wendy and Jeff's Shower

Here are some pictures from Wendy and Jeff's baby shower.

I somehow missed getting a picture of Melissa, who is looking fit and fantastic. I've put in a request with Wendy to see if I can steal a picture.

And here it is... Thanks Wendy! Melissa, you look great!

Bad Yoga Mat

I bought a yoga mat for $30 at Target, and when I used it yesterday, it was so slippery (my hands were sliding) that I had to get one of the other mats that are available to borrow at the gym. I'm going to try to return it even if it has been opened, because I can't figure out how they think it could possibly work. They shouldn't be selling a product like that. If I can return it, I'm going to much more careful with my next yoga mat purchase.

I'm trying to get my own mat because the ones at the gym seem kind of gross and well used. We are bare foot and sometimes press our faces into the mat. I'm probably going to end up with some strange foot disease. Also, people are sweating and then lying on the mats. So there you have it, I'd like to have my own mat.

Yesterday I did pilates for the first time. It didn't seem all that hard when I was in the class, but again I'm sore, especially my stomach muscles. It was a good class.

I May Have Prevented a Nervous Breakdown

This weekend, I had way to too much to do which caused me to feel very overwhelmed and completely stressed out. I was irritable with Jake, which made him irritable back at me, and he suggested I drop my Calculus class in order to prevent myself from having a nervous breakdown.

I thought about it and decided that he was probably right since I felt about ready to snap, so today I dropped the class. I ended up with a "W" in the course (after only 7 days), which I didn't think would happen if I dropped by today, so that really upset me. I called Jake and he listened to me sniffle about how aweful I was feeling and tried to cheer me up (very sweet). It's not really the "W" but everything else... I really wanted to take the class and now I'm not going to, I've put work into helping a few people find a house and none have worked out so far (which is mainly why I can't handle taking this class), and a load of other things.

On top of everything else, when I went to the front house this morning, my For Sale sign was gone. Yes, it's just plain gone. The ground post is still there, but some psycho came by and took off the top 2x4 with my sign attached. They must have knocked it off into our fence because one of our slats had also fallen off, like the sign hit it when it came off.

So I'm waiting to see if I feel more relaxed without worrying about quizes, tests, and studying. Since my main goal is to pass the CSET right now, maybe I'll see if I can get info on past tests so that I can study. At least I can do that when I feel like I have the time.

I'm Sore!

Wow, I can't believe how sore I am. When I went to Yoga a couple weeks ago, I must not have tried as hard as I did yesterday. My entire body hurts... neck, shoulders, back, arms, stomach, butt, and legs. This lady gives us a really good workout and we don't even sweat, which is nice since I went back to work afterward.

Today, the secretary and I are supposed to go on a jog after work. I hope it's not too hot. I'm hoping that I'll start to feel better about my health if I start exercising again.

June 21st, 2006

It's our 30th birthday! I say "our" because it's Wendy's b-day today also. Happy birthday Wendy! Here's my day: 1) class from 8am-10am 2) Cal Poly job from 10am-3pm 3) Drive to WLAC from 3pm-4pm 4) WLAC job from 4pm-7pm 5) drive somewhere to have dinner with Jake. At least dinner will be fun today...

I also got my stiches out on Monday, so I've posted an update picture from today. It's not perfect, but it's better than it was before, which makes my happier.

David and Melissa's House Warming

On Saturday we went to Melissa and David's House Warming Get Together. Caiden and David played pool for a bit and Caiden didn't want to stop. I guess he's taking after his father. He was finally satisfied with rolling one of the pool balls around the floor, knocking it into walls. I hope the walls and pool ball survived the beating. :)


Dad and Jake went on a hunt for the water facet or something like that. I think Dad gets more excited to see Jake than me. They both like talking about tools and building stuff. I supose that my knifty knitter just wouldn't be the same sort of conversation.


Caiden and I played with playdo for a bit and we were actually allowed to mix colors. In fact, there was playdo everywhere. Of course, mom had already left by that point. Hee, hee. Caiden started to get a bit tired after his long and exciting day.


Here's a picture of the kitchen area, with David (Melissa's brother-in-law) fixing their TV/DVD setup, Susan, Mathew, and Steven.


Congratulations on your new home, Melissa and David. It's beautiful!

Caiden

After much experimentation, I think this is the best I'm going to get. I'll just have to deal with having two videos. It's better than three or four that I had showing at some point. Maybe the next time will be easier...

Video

I can't figure out how to get the video to work properly. I'll try to figure it out later.

More To The Car Accident Story

I couldn't find a picture of my old beetle on the computer, so I stole this picture off of another site. It has different rims and no tinted windows, but it's pretty much my old car. Sniff, sniff.... I really liked my beetle. By the way, Wendy reminded me in her last comment that I missed a part of the story.

As I was sitting there bleeding, I heard a guy talking who said that if Jake hadn't hit his breaks so hard, the guy who hit us would have run into the side of our car and probably killed Jake (I cried about that a bit later). It's probably true. The guy who ran the red hit the front of my car on Jake's side and kind of ran over the front pushing our car a bit to the right, then he kept going for about 50 feet until he was stopped by the tree he ran into. And they didn't even test him to see if he'd been drinking. Strange.

Here's the updated picture for today.


I'm still not seeing the Angelina Jolie resemblence. I thought I told the doctor that's the look I was going for. Is it just me, or is it not happening?

Once Upon a Time I Was In a Car Accident

Chris requested the story to go along with the car accident, so here it is.

Once upon a time we decided to go out dancing with some friends in hollywood on a Wednesday night. We carpooled with a friend (Matt) who was sitting behind me, so I had my seat very close to the dashboard. We left a little after 1am and were almost home by 2am when a guy ran a red light and hit us. I remember Jake saying "Oh sh@$!" and slamming on the brakes. I turned to look at him and put my hands up to brace myself. When the guy hit us, the air bag went off and hit my hands and my face. I didn't even realize it had happened since it was so fast (I didn't even see it), but suddenly my face started to hurt and I licked my lips and it felt enormous and strange. At first I thought my lip had exploded since it felt raw, but I calmed down since people weren't freaking out when they looked at me. My hands also started to hurt and I thought I'd broken at least one of my fingers. The air bad hit so hard that the skin had exploded in a couple of places from the pressure.

Kind of funny, I remember trying not to drip blood on my pants because I liked them a lot and didn't want them ruined. I guess that shows where my priorities lie.

They eventually put a neck brace on me and took me away in an ambulance. They were trying to keep Jake away (he was really pissed about that) but got over to me to say goodbye before I left. He finished finding a way to get Matt home and our car towed to our place (it was totaled), and borrowed a car from a friend who lived nearby and came very quickly to the hospital.

They took forever and left me in the very uncomfortable neck brace. I wasn't very happy because it was hurting so I started to wriggle around a lot to try to get comfortable, so I probably would have aggravated any neck injury anyway.

Finally the doctor came and they took x-rays of my hands (not broken), cleaned me up and sent me home. One really annoying thing was that the nurse came in to clean me up and started washing my face to get the blood off. She kept wiping above my lip while I bore the pain. She finally left the wet guaze, since she wasn't getting the blood off, and asked me to clean it while we waited for the doctor. I told Jake that I'd rather have dried blood on me than go through the pain of having the blood wiped off so I left my face alone. The doctor came in, prescribed meds, and did his thing, then asked the nurse to finish wiping my face. After another minute of wiping she finally let things be. It turns out that they thought it was dried blood where I was scraped on my face. They kept scrubbing at my raw, bloody face. I was quite irritated when I realized that's what had been happening.

We finally got home at about 6am and went to sleep. Jake took the next day off of work. Jake and Matt, who were both in the Thursday morning accident, took their Engineer In Training exam on Saturday and they both passed (only 30% of people pass). Luckily, the accident didn't shake them up too much.

Here's today's picture - looking even better.

Stitches

This is right after the surgery on my way home. Looks kind of yucky.


This was taken last night.


This was taken a minute ago. Looking better.


I'm supposed to go back on Monday. He might take the stiches out or maybe just make sure things look OK.

Chuck and Jen Visited

Last weekend we hung out with Jake's brother (Chuck), his girlfriend (Jen), and their daughter (McKenna). We even went to Disneyland!

Goodbye Lumpy Lip!

On Monday I have surgery on my lip. I'm getting a little nervous. I'm going to have to be very careful for the next couple weeks so that everything heals well. I don't want to end up with it looking worse that before. I'll try to post some pictures of the stitches next week. Wish me luck...

Science Graduation Ceremony

Tonight I'm helping with the College of Science graduation ceremony. We're all wearing our green College of Science shirts and khaki pants. I had to go last night after work to buy a pair of pants since none of my old khakis fit me right now. I started out at Old Navy and found a great pair on sale for only $6.50, but they only had an 8 and a 12, and I definitely needed a 10. So I went to another Old Navy that I know and they didn't have anything even close to what I wanted, regardless of price, size, etc. Lastly I found a pair at Ross for $14 and had to get them since it was 9:15pm and I was out of time. Unfortunately, the pants are linen and I now look like I slept in them even though I ironed them before wearing them this morning. And it seems like they've stretched out over the day. They're now super baggie and wrinkled.



Jake said I should have to buy these pants with my money (we both have allowances), but I say that's not fair. I never would have bought these unless I was desperate. And at 9:15pm last night, I was definitely desperate.

Free Money

For the last month WLAC (part time job) has had me only work one day a week instead of the usual two days since things are slow and they are trying to watch the budget. I received my check last weekend for the previous month and saw that I had been accidentally paid for working two days instead of one. I called my supervisor and left a message explaining the mistake and she called back and said "Merry Christmas". She's going to let me keep the extra pay even though I didn't work. I get an additional $500 that I shouldn't have. How cool is that?

Mom, Jim and Caiden Came to Visit

Last night Mom, Jim and Caiden came out to Pasadena to visit and to see the newest improvements. This is us leaving for the restaurant.


Below is a picture at the restaurant. We had Italian, which is always good. Originally, we were seated next to a table with two loud children with parents who let them do whatever they wanted. Caiden was hilarious when at a particularly loud and long scream, he turned toward the table, put a finger to his lips and said, "shhhhh". He looked totally serious like he was appalled at how loud they were being. That lasted about 10 minutes before I asked if we could be reseated. We then sat a lovely table on the patio. The temperature was perfect for an outside meal.


This is Caiden's picture of Jim, with only a little help from me.


And this is us going home. What a fun night!

My Newest Project

I'm now trying to make a blanket (Wendy, don't look, it's a surprise). The trick with this one is that it's not round, so I figured out how to turn the yarn around to make something flat. The first step is to go around the circle just like usual which you can see in the picture.


The second step is the key. Instead of wrapping around the next peg, you wrap it back around the previous peg as seen in the picture below.


The third step is to wrap around the next peg and go back the other way.


The only problem I have so far is that the bottom is rolling up a little bit which you can see in the picture below.


The edge looks just a little bit strange, but not too bad. I don't know how this will look when it's done, but it's fun anyway. I'll post again once I finish.

Yoga and Other Exercise

I survived my first yoga class. It's kind of interesting; I feel like I worked out my muscles, but it didn't seem very hard when I was doing it. If I'm sore tomorrow, I might feel better about the whole thing.

It turns out the that the gym has a Pilates class on Wednesdays. Maybe I'll try that also to see if it's any good. (That suggestion came from Lonnie.)

The secretary in the office went with me today and we were actually talking about trying to go jogging after work one of these days. She and I are both way out of shape, so we need it. That might be good motivation since I'd have someone with me.

I Gave Blood

Last week I gave blood. It took me about an hour and a half from when I walked in the door to when I was able to leave. They really need to learn to speed things up if they want people to come back again.

I'm thinking about trying to give platelets next time to see how bad it is. My Mom and Dad both said that they would go with me if they had the time. I'm thinking of scheduling an appointment for next week. Kind of scary for someone who had never given blood until a couple of months ago because I was so scared of that needle!

Helping Someone Find a Home

This weekend someone called asking about our house for sale in Pasadena, but the price was too high for her. She asked us if we knew of any other houses for sale, so I'm going to see if she wants to look at some next weekend. I'm not sure if anything will come out of this, but it would be cool if I actually had someone buy a house with me acting as the broker. Maybe I should try to get some clients by working with people who call asking about our house. Hmmmm.

My Troll Doll Seems Happy

Over the weekend, I was at my friend's house. I saw that the little girl who I gave my troll doll to has it out in her room and still uses it. For those who don't remember that post, I was lamenting giving away my happy meal toy troll because it was so cute. I'm quite comforted to know that she has gone to a better home than I could have given her. :)

David's Pinning Ceremony

David's pinning ceremony was fun.


In the picture below, David is the second from the left.

Baby Hat

I'm very proud that I actually made this hat. You can't tell from the picture, but it's very small and it will be for Wendy's baby. She picked the yarn out last weekend, and it only took me a couple of days to finish it. In fact, the poof on the top took me about the same amount of time as the entire rest of the hat.

I keep wondering when I'll get tired of knitting, but so far it's still lots of fun.