shop-ping

For what has seemed like forever, Tim and I haven't been able to go shopping and just buy whatever we felt like buying. Probably since before Christmas. And we both need stuff, and in particular, we both needed new shoes.

DSW just opened a store down in Lake Oswego, and we went on a shoe shopping spree. I got new running 'neakers, which means I can finally finally start building up my mileage again. I'm looking forward to running without pain and actually enjoying running again. I bought two pairs of work shoes, and my first pair of casual shoes that I've had since we've been here, so now I don't have to wear my running shoes or work shoes when we go out on the weekends. Tim got a pair of sketchers and a pair of doc martens. It felt so nice to just be able to buy them and not worry about it.

'fessing up

Ok. I admit it. I watch American Idol. Some of the contestants I like. Some I hate, like hick boy Bucky. But last night...they were all terrible...even my boy Chris wasn't doing the great job he usually does. And Paula at least made a small amount of sense...where's the fun in that? lol

ending confession now :)

starting over with running

Started running again. Now, I've been running off and on, but it seems I am never able to do it really consistently, either because of stuff going on in life (moving, tim going back east, me going back east, etc.) Things have calmed down a bit, but I have been feeling squishy and like my pants aren't fitting as nicely as I want them to, and the best way to fix that is to get back to running regularly.

One of the nice things about the East side is that it is so much flatter than the west side, so it is a lot easier on my knees. Along the river is a beautiful esplanade, a two mile loop. Right now I am still having a hard time with this distance, I can do it, but I feel I am struggling toward the end. But this will be a good way for me to see my progress.

saturday market and a chinese garden

Met Amy downtown today to wander around Saturday Market. This is only the second time I've been there, and I think I either need to go alone or go with Tim. Reason...it is very hard to visit or try to talk to people or catch up while wandering around Sat. Mkt.

Saw some beautiful jewelry, some cool pottery and lamps I might like to get for the house, and lots and lots of dogs. While I think it is cool they can bring their dogs with them, that would obviously not be a good idea for Myra.

Then, we left the market looking for a coffee shop, and stumbled across the Chinese Garden. Truly an oasis in the middle of the city. Outside the walls, the area is a little sketchy, there are some homeless, and just an area that is a little more run down. Then you step inside the walls and it is like a breath of fresh air and calm. Wandering around, you feel peaceful. The buildings, the plants, the rock sculptures, it was just nice to wander around in there. I wish I had brought my camera. I can't wait to bring Tim there. We stopped in at the teahouse, and I tried moon cakes, a pastry filled with a bean paste. Very good, very filling.

Walking around in the Chinese Garden really awakens my desire to go to China. I would love to see the countryside, see the little villages. A good goal to save for.

a perfect portland afternoon

What a lovely afternoon.

We went to check out a new doggy day care for the pup, and we were very impressed. We are taking Myra for her evaluation on Monday, and I'm sure they will love her. The nice part, they are open on Sundays, and they do boarding, so now we have a place right close by.

After that, we went to Bay Leaf, a vegetarian Asian restaurant. Beautiful inside, very relaxing, good food and cheap prices.

We were planning on going to Sellwood to go furniture shopping, but ended up stopping at Village Merchant, a great thrift store. I got a work skirt, a cute top, a scarf, an awesome snuggle blanket for the couch, a cool blue glass bottle and funky drinking glasses, all for only $42. The same family owns a new and used furniture store just down the street, which we will check out later. And all of this is within a five minute drive. It felt like such a Portland afternoon.

*Sidenote: On this one street, we must have come across at least 8 different coffee shops in a 40 block radius. Too funny.

Today, I am happy with...

our new house and settling in
learning our neighborhood
the fact that it is Saturday and I can just hang with the boy and the pup
Listening to Chris Daughtry (American Idol singer). Love his voice. The fact that he is a sexy as hell bald guy doesn't hurt either
our money situation. It is no longer tight and stressful
my new friends out here. It feels like we are more settled now that we have some friends
the fact that I can take a nap later

so glad

I'm not new-dating. My friend Tawny came over for dinner last night (who keeps getting cooler the more I talk to her, she is definitely becoming a close friend) and was telling us the latest about the guy she is dating.

I am so glad to not be in that position, where everything is new, and you aren't sure if you should call, or when to call, or if you say something weird are they going to think you are stupid, and does he really like me? While new dating can be fun, it can also be exhausting trying to navigate through all that! I will keep me boy whom i love more all the time, thank you! :)

hooray!

Our new bank cards arrived yesterday! It was hard figuring out how much cash we needed, since we needed cash for everything. It was also not convenient to keep getting cash out, since my bank branch that is close to work doesn't have cash, and you had to hope one of the tellers took out a few hundred dollars to have on hand.

Although it was certainly nice knowing our balance was entirely real, and not reflecting stuff that hadn't cleared yet because the charges hadn't gone through. You don't realize how often you use your card until you don't have it.

It's a relief to have new cards though. And the thief...only got $55 from us (which we already got back from the bank).

there'll be days like this

Love love love this van morrison song. It always makes me happy, always puts me in a good mood, and there are definitely "days like this...when all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit." I'm starting to feel this way again.

I feel like things are coming together now. We are in the house (hooray!!!) and it is starting to get set up. You can already see the potential of how nice it will look. It feels homey. It feels like a place I want to sprawl and journal and read. We've started going out and looking at decorative pieces and I'm getting a sense of what I want to include. I want lots of color. Texture. And some fun. But it will definitely feel like Tim and me.

And I am starting to feel like we are coming out of the craziness of March. I feel like life is starting to make sense again. I feel like we are getting back on track again. And somehow, our money situation seems really good again. I'm not quite sure how, but I am not going to question it. I am going to be grateful, and thankful to the universe. I am open to abundance :D

And to close, here are the lyrics to Days like this...

When it’s not always raining there’ll be days like this
When there’s no one complaining there’ll be days like this
When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch
Well my mama told me there’ll be days like this

When you don’t need to worry there’ll be days like this
When no one’s in a hurry there’ll be days like this
When you don’t get betrayed by that old judas kiss
Oh my mama told me there’ll be days like this

When you don’t need an answer there’ll be days like this
When you don’t meet a chancer there’ll be days like this
When all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they f it
Then I must remember there’ll be days like this

When everyone is up front and they’re not playing tricks
When you don’t have no freeloaders out to get their kicks
When it’s nobody’s business the way that you wanna live
I just have to remember there’ll be days like this

When no one steps on my dreams there’ll be days like this
When people understand what I mean there’ll be days like this
When you ring out the changes of how everything is
Well my mama told me there’ll be days like this

Oh my mama told me
There’ll be days like this
Oh my mama told me
There’ll be days like this
Oh my mama told me
There’ll be days like this
Oh my mama told me
There’ll be days like this

Only 3% delicious? That doesn't seem right.

Your Nutritional Information: Servings Per Container: 1 x % Daily Value Sweetness: 32 g 64% Bitterness: 384 mg 35% Power: 8 g 23% Healthful: 1 mg 0% Excitement: 513 mg 47% x Deliciousness: 3% 'What" is your nutritional value?' at QuizGalaxy.com

recharging myself in small green bursts

I've started going for a walk during my lunch break. I bring my trail shoes, grab my shuffle and go. Make no mistake, this is exercise. Most of my walk is uphill and I walk fast.

Within five minutes, I'm deep in the woods. Everything is green and a little misty and quiet and peaceful. I feel energized. I feel like things that are stressing me out fade off into the mist. I feel like I leave work far behind. It wakes me up and just makes me feel a lot better for the rest of the afternoon. It's just nice to breathe the clean air and feel my head getting clearer, feel like I'm getting back to me. I really enjoy it.

ben and jerry's, a la kelly

You Are The Godfather Ice Cream

Someone crosses you, and they'll end up with a scoop of this in their bed

What Flavor Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Are You?

Bwhahahahahahah. I always knew I had mob ties :p

cute myra-isms

When she is sleepy, she will stretch out as long as she can, her back legs straight behind her, her front legs straight in front, her head down on her front paws. She looks like a very long, lean superhero puppy

Last night when she came to bed with me, I was reading in bed for a while. At one point, she nudged closer to my hand, and gave me this very sleepy look like "can I please go to sleep now?" Tim shut off the bedroom light, and she lay there with my hand on her head for a while.

She loves her bone. She chews on it all the time, we give it to her in her crate when we put her bed. When Tim let her out last night to go pee, she had bone in her mouth, took it outside and kept it in her mouth the whole time.

When we give her dog food, she has to sit and stay until we release her from stay. She drools. A lot. A steady stream of drool because she wants her food so badly.

I love my puppy!

dumped by lisa

Lisa "broke up" with me today...two weeks after I told her we weren't friends anymore because she wasn't being a good friend.

She said that she has been re-evaluating priorities in her life, and "since we have different things that we want/need out of the friendship" and "that she only has so much to give right now, and it is clearly not meeting my needs, we should cut our losses." She managed to sound both snotty and self-righteous. She seems to think that I was asking for a lot of her time, that I was expecting too much of her. Really, I was just asking/expecting basic courtesies of friendship.

It was rather silly actually, and I'm relieved and can walk away without any bad feelings. I still think she will try to make up with me when Rob cheats on her or her wedding gets postponed or she realizes she has lost all her real friends. I'm trying to not think mean thoughts, and I certainly don't wish her ill, but that seems to be the path she is heading down. Maybe this was a good wake up call for her and she can readjust some of her priorities, like her fiance. If that's the case, if me writing to her helped her realize what is important to her, then I am glad.

Sense of load lightened. Sense of shedding the old, shedding the bad parts that no longer fit. This spring is about growth and rebirth and shedding things/friendships/houses that no longer fit are a good part of that :)

my wallet was stolen!!

So I went to a 1 p.m. meeting with Trish and Patrick. I come back to my desk an hour later and have a voice mail from a woman who says she has my driver's licence card and my OHSU Fitness Center card, a petsmart card, and a couple more small things. She said she found them on Terwilliger, the road that leads up to work.

I panic and start looking all over for my wallet. It's not in my purse, which is in the cubby over my desk, it is not in my coat pocket. It's not anywhere else in my desk. I immediately think that it must have fallen out of my jacket when we went to Starbucks on the way to work, since I definitely had it then.

But I am obsessive about checking my bank balance and crossing stuff off in my palm pilot that cleared. I know I wrote down in my Palm Pilot (which is in my wallet) that I was transferring money to savings and I didn't do that until after 10 in the morning. I didn't go anywhere else all day, and I distinctly remember putting my wallet in my purse and putting my purse in my cubby before the meeting, because there has been a theft in our building before. And we closed and locked our office door before we went to our 1 p.m. meeting.

That means someone broke into our office (or had a key) almost right after we left for the meeting. They also stole my ipod and whatever cash was in my wallet, no more than $10.

I felt scared and angry and just creeped out. Someone went through my stuff. They went through my purse, they looked in my cubby. If that woman hadn't called me to say she found my driver's license (and if I didn't have my fitness card still in my wallet indicating I work at OHSU), I wouldn't have know about it till I was ready to go home.

As it was, whoever stole my wallet had no more than an hour with my debit/credit card. I put a block on it as soon as I got off the phone with the woman who called me. I looked through all my checks, and none were missing.

More than that though, I hate that they have my palm pilot. My palm pilot has all my bank information. It doesn't have my account number or anythign, but it has my balance. I hate that someone has that. As far as the ipod, I'm actually slightly amused about that because the ipod doesn't hold a charge anymore. I wasn't good about draining it completely and then filling it completely, so it doesn't hold a charge for more than half an hour now, so it is not like they stole a great ipod. I had to replace it anyway.

It was just such a violation. Thank god for good, nice, decent people. If whoever had stolen my card had had longer with it, there is a very real chance our new rent check wouldn't clear and then we'd be in such a horrible position. So I will be grateful for small miracles and small blessings.

new home and neighborhood exploring

We just brought over our first boxes and bookcase, rearranged the rug that will be in the dining room and started planning out what furniture will go where in the new house. It makes it feel real now, which is a very nice feeling.

After dropping off some boxes of books, we explored the area a bit. Walked around Ladd's Addition, went to the neighborhood coffee shop, and then drove down to Hawthorne. Tim finally saw that it was a cool section to wander around, with lots of coffee shops, restaurants and neat, different little stores. We won't be over there all the time, but it will be nice to go over and wander on some weekends.

Dumb moment of the weekend: We were signing the lease and paperwork yesterday, and I kept signing everything for 2008. I guess that is what happens when you don't eat all morning, and then you go to tell Tim that we have a two-year lease, through 2008. Lol. But I also dated the rent check for 2008 too, doh, so I have to drop off a new check to Will. It's tough to be so cool. :)

Whoohooooo!!!!


We just signed the lease and got our keys! So excited about the house. It is slightly smaller than we remembered, but in a good way. We were actually slightly worried we wouldn't have enough stuff to fill the house, but it won't be a problem. 

We walked Myra around her new neighborhood again, and Ladd's Addition is very cute. Our street is a little run down, but since Ladd's Addition is literally a block away, it doesn't really matter. It just feels so good to know the house is officially ours. We actually signed a two-year lease, which we are thrilled about. We are both very tired of moving. 

Hooray happy new house dance!! 

moving on :)

Hello blog, sorry to be away for so long. It's been a bit of a crazy week.

The move is a reality now, and I am so excited. We are going to start moving boxes this weekend, we should be signing the lease this morning. We were going to sign last night, but Craig had to fix his sink apparently, and we didn't end up meeting up with him. I will have a slight paranoia until we officially sign the lease, I am very slightly afraid that Hannah is going to do something to mess it up, even though I know that isn't going to happen.

Hannah got even more absurd this week, which is only making me more excited to leave this house and be away from all the craziness we've endured in the past few months here. What she said this week was definitely the topper though. She called Wednesday to say she still needed the rent money, then made up a completely new definition of default when I told her the lease says that the security deposit will be used towards default rent. Then she tried to blame us for the fact that she now "has to sell the house." But we haven't heard from her since Wednesday, so maybe she is realizing that she doesn't actually have a legal leg to stand on.

I feel energized by the move. I feel like we get to start over in a lot of ways. It's a nice feeling. We've been looking at stuff we want to decorate the house with, thinking about what art work we want and looking for fun old glass bottles for the hutches. I've been doing some research on SE, and I think we will enjoy living over there. It seems close to a lot of things, more walking friendly (Ladd' Addition is a nice place to walk Myra) and lots of cute houses. It's a nice way to start spring.

I will take my camera when we start moving boxes and upload pictures of our new house :) bounce bounce.

death of a friendship

My friendship with Lisa is over and I'm left feeling like I wasted a lot of time, for no real reason, and feeling like I never really knew her. I don't miss who she has become, but I miss who she was when we first met.

There was a time when I considered her my best friend. When it seemed we understood each other so well.

When we moved, I put a lot of effort into staying in touch. Cards, letters, e-mails. I gradually started to notice it wasn't being returned much. So I stopped writing as much. I stopped calling.

Then I started noticing that she disappeared whenever I was having problems, challenges, difficulties. Anything that made me "not fun Kelly." But whenever she had a problem, she would come crying to me. Every now and then, she would write and apologize for disappearing, because she was so busy and had so much going on, and we're still friends, right?

The distance grew, I stopped missing her and I started to put it behind me. I saw her when I went back in February, and even though we talked for hours, it felt...off. Now I realize the distance had grown and there was a lot we didn't know anymore.

But the final straw came this week. She sent me an e-mail asking how I was, and it was right after we had just heard from Dave that there was nothing more the doctors could do for Sarah, and we were just waiting for the bad news. I told her about that, about the stress of moving, our landlord, of coming up with the cost of an emergency ticket on top of a move, all of it. And not a fucking word.

I'm honestly not angry or hurt, because I've gone through those emotions with her so many times in the past few months. I don't feel anything now, I'm just done and have closed her out of my life forever. But I am just shocked that someone could be that rude, that insensitive. Even if I wasn't really good friends with someone and I heard that their boyfriend's best friend's wife was dying, I would tell them I was sorry to hear it. People continue to surprise me.

sad

We found out yesterday that Sarah died. We are both heartbroken for Dave, and for Nate who will grow up without a mother. Tim flew out last night on the first flight we could get him on. I feel bad that I couldn't go back with him, both to support Tim and to be there for Dave. But we just couldn't swing it financially, at least not if we still wanted to go forward with the move.

This is when it is hard to be all the way across the country, because you can't just hop in the car and be there when your friends or family need you. I know Tim is planning on making a trip to Vermont to see Dimitri, and I think that will be good for him as well. And Mikk, thank you so much for calling last night. It made tim feel good that you called.

the letting go

Well, it is March 1, and no word from Craig on the SE house. We dropped off the applications Thursday night while he was out of town, and I e-mailed him Friday and never heard back from him. I called him Monday night and he said he hadn't finished processing the applications but planned to finish them tomorrow. I asked if he needed anything else, and he said he would call if he did.

Since we haven't heard, I am assuming we didn't get the house. I can only think it is because of the bankruptcies, since we have great references and he liked us so much.

I know it is not the end of the world. We will stay here till the end of May and we will have a lot more money saved up. And I know it is not the only nice house. But I really loved that kitchen. I loved the house, I felt at home there. And I just feel like we have big scarlet Bs tatooed on our forehead. I feel like it changes how people think of us. It makes me wonder if we will have problems at another house. Tim keeps reminding me that Hannah (our landlord here) was very thorough, and she didn't care about the bankruptcies.

So, now I'm trying to let the house go and remember that I shouldn't get too excited about something before it happens. And trying to remember that we will find another house we love just as much. I still feel like a bankruptcy loser though.