Anne's Rambles, never quite makes sense, does it?

baby+z+072.JPG (JPEG Image, 2112x2816 pixels) - Scaled (20%)

2007-12-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

baby+z+072.JPG (JPEG Image, 2112x2816 pixels) - Scaled (20%)

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-12T22:16:00.001-08:00

The year has already come to the point again where we celebrate family and friends. We got a tree from Brunie and Jim Poole (Jason's mom and step-dad) today. I was so excited to decorate it (it came decorated but I added to it) It is a living spruce tree that came with a string of lights and the classic wooden children toy ornaments, and little bulb christmas lite ornaments. I added little balls that I had bought in a previous year and supplemented with ribbon. I took some pictures (some with Figaro sniffing the new item in the house) and even some with no flash and movement that look pretty cool, IMHO.

I already wrote a little ditty about Oscar and now I think that I should be thinking about going to bed so that I won't be late for work again tomorrow. I have a very very busy week at work this week as companies think they need to celebrate at fancy restaurants this year. Tonight we had P.S.E. with 50 guests and 5 courses. We have a two big groups next Friday celebrating company parties on the same night in the main dining room.... that will be interesting for the employees of The Herbfarm. I just hope that I can get enough folding help to get through the next three weeks to be conscious for the New Year of 2008

I went to amazon.com the other night when I was half under the influence of ambien and got about half of my shopping done. I really need to look at my online banking to make sure that all is ok with upcoming bills... hehe, I love the holidays. I am excited to give a few gifts that I bought that night. A few feel like "Man.....! This is what's left?!! Make a BIGGER LIST!"..... People shopped early this year it seems. Shopping the malls is nearly useless as it's just gobs of people and useless objects that the people I know have no use for. Not even for a laugh. Jason is a good shopper, he goes in and finds things and buys them. We have gone holiday shopping once and we found 3 gifts for family and 3 gifts for us personally :) We broke even that day. A good day. I think that we will go again and try to find the really hard to find people... like Ron and Carrie! And the people that buy everything they want when they want it. LIKE JASON..... what does a girl get that guy?! I don't know.... For all I know he wants a chunk of cotton from the old folks home because he HAS EVERYTHING HE ALREADY WANTS...

ok, now I am just getting frustrated because I want to make the ones I love happy by buying them things they want. And that is to show them that I care for them throughout the whole year. But things like CD's and candy and random toys just seem weird to me when I have had a few beers and have worked a full day (aka TIRED) I love to get together with my family and friends and close ones to celebrate the year and new things that have happened and are upcoming. but why does it alway turn into 3 weeks of stress and thinking of what does this person want in a material form.?! Why can't I think of this back in August and get it done early?! I hate last minute stuff. Something like making cookies I can understand making last minute, because cookies made in august and given in december are BAD! so some cases are ok.... But It's just so stressful to have buy buy buy in the 4 weeks from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. Every year it happens, it won't change either. There might be ONE year in the future, just ONE year, where I get every thing in order and December will be nice and stress free. But until that year comes.... I think I will just have a cocktail and sit on the couch with my sweetheart and watch sportscenter and stress out about how every year is the same! Better go to bed so that I am not late for another busy day at the restaurant Thursday. Love to my loved ones. I am thinking of you all. Some of you a little more than the rest (and you know who YOU are) I do apologize that I am not actually celebrating in person with you at this moment. But on the 24th and 25th are the two days that I will be with you and smile upon being alive. sorry if the gifts are lame, people shopped early this year and lists were short..... Love you no matter what I actually bought to try to show you :)

LVOE ANNE

New male in my life!

2007-12-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

This is my nephew, Oscar. He is so cute and sweet. My big brother, Paul and his lovely wife, Tara, have brought the cutest little guy into this world. His name is Oscar (isn't that just the best name ever?!) He is pretty quiet right now, as he is still a baby. Soon, Oscar will be letting this world know what he is all about with the intelligence that both of his parents inhabit. He is already a thinker! You can tell just by the pictures of him. Oscar Elliott was about a month early, born on August 10th. He was not due until the first full week if September ( I think the 7th was the due date). When he was still incubating he decided that it was enough time inside the warmth of Tara and wanted to let the powers that be know that it was time to get to out into the cold world we all know as Planet Earth. He arrived just before 9 pm (8:45pm PT) on August 10th, 2007. His Uncle Ryan and Auntie Emily were waiting, along with Grandma and Grandpa Zimmerman. Auntie Anne tagged along and hung out with Kathy and Nick in the waiting room watching the fish tank. (Grandma Deane wanted to be there but was on vacation in France thinking a full month was okay to be away.... Little Oscar had something else on his mind and wanted to have a story for all of us to tell!! I guess, when he starts talking we'll get HIS side of the story... )... On the T.V. was a Jack Black movie called "School of Rock". A funny little flick to pass the time. As the 7 of us waited (not so patiently) in the waiting room of Northwest Hospital, we read the headlines of August tenth, watched the movie of the week on tv, looked at the nurses station with dismay as they would do their jobs as they would every other day of the week not realizing that one of the most precious people in the entire history of the planet Earth was being birthed. As if people are born everyday in these peoples days.... Whatever! Oscar Elliott Zimmerman was being pressured into the world and we were all anxious to meet him. Paul and Tara had regular visits to the doctor and she had monitored his growth and found that he was done with the womb and should start growing on his own, with air and nourishment outside. Tara was induced nearly a full day before little Oscar was born. Heavy labor was about 3 hours (I think actually closer to 4 hours, but 2 1/2-3 hours of hard, hard pushing labor) before Oscar made his appearance. The doc's and nurses were a little concerned with his lungs, as I was told that they can be very weak when born at 36 weeks. I can't imagine what Paul and Tara must have been feeling once Oscar was born and the doctors and nurses were working so fast and not talking much. Trying to tend to Oscar and make sure that he was breathing on his own and his temperature was high enough. I was also told that premature babies have trouble keeping warm since their skin is pretty thin. The last month of growing inside the womb is basically gaining weight to prepare for life outside of Mommy. When Oscar was born he was only 4 pounds 4 ounces. That's pretty small for a baby to enter the world. But!!! Oscar is a Zimmerman, and is strong. He has a great pedigree to begin with and that is a plus in his direction. He was a little guy under 17 inches (16 and 3/4 to be exact.) But you must understand that height is so OVERRATED in this American society. Mommy Tara is just over 5 feet tall and Auntie Anne is just oh so very slightly taller than that (shrinking by the year, I swear it!) Although, I have no doubts at all that he will over come this small birth height and be a tall one. Who knows, he could be the tallest one in the Zimmerman family. As far as I know, not one of the Z males has gone over 6 feet, let Oscar be the first! I think I'm done growing (in height, that is. Growing in width is always in question.... especially the past few years and the medications the doctors have me on.)

...This entire post was brought on by looking at Oscar's web site that Paul and Tara have made for him. He's already so smart, he posts what is going on in his life and all the things that he is learning. The first Halloween, first joke, baths with Daddy, walks with Mommy, and all sorts of activities that he goes to. Even friends he meets and things he hopes to do in the near future. It's a great web site. If you have a few minutes to check out incredible pictures and astonishing writing by someone who was born only months ago, please visit oscarzimmerman.com. I am so proud to have him as my nephew (first "official" nephew). He is so cute, so innocent, so smart! I only hope to show him the good parts of Jason and my world (basically Seattle sports) I hope that he likes me as a Auntie and he doesn't think that I am a total nerd. I admire Tara and Paul for bringing such a sweet person into our lives and I eagerly await his future as I am a little part of his life. I hope to be a good influence in his life. I want only good things for him to learn and be a good human and contribute to this world. New life can be such a wonderful thing. Welcome little Oscar, to this little world of ours. I love you so much already :)

Oscar’s Musings

I like this song.

2007-10-19T02:10:00.000-07:00

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars video

[via FoxyTunes / Snow Patrol]

Chasing cars was the one song during the Summer of 2007 that I really liked and turned up every time it came onto the radio. So I thought that I would try something new with my blogger and try to get into writing again over the fall and winter when the service days at work start to slow down a bit. Anyways, enjoy this little ditty that is a love song, in my humble opinion, or simply mute it and read all of my annoying facts that are going on in my life these days. Which, in all honesty, is not much with the work schedule that I'm getting used to again and trying to be a best employee at the same time. More later as I am supposed to be sleeping and getting up early to greet a delivery at work at about 7:30 in the MORNING. I don't think I'm as much of a morning person as I once was. Especially when the weather turns very humid and cooler... Sleep is good. Jason is good. Smiles are good. I love ya all.

very soon,

Anne

Drunk thoughts!

2007-05-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

here are the thoughts pf a drunk person. I hate Who I have become in the[past year. I used to stand f or something, bit now I just sleep it away. I used to have people who could stand up for me, but now don't know who I am because I ssleep the dya away. I may have cancer, I may be just batteling wit h my won head. Most likely the later, but who knows, I may be the one of those thiousands who die every year of cancer that you hear aboiut but don't rea;;y take the time to think about. I heard from a specialist that I have to see some one else to rule out all of thses other cases. One of them being cancer that my grandfather died of. The most healthy minded person I have ever know. The most healthy person I have ever knpw died of this diesease. Colon cancer. I heard these words this week as a reason why I have felt like shit the past year. A reason why I don't want to get up and battle every day. I don't know what to do except fpr numb myself. That is the easiest right now and that is all I can deal with right now. Numb, that sounds nice for the next few weeks until we know the answer is nothing to worry aboiut except for changing my diet and taking a new supplement.

Anne

people suck, weather is hurtful

2007-03-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

It is so hard to try to explain how the weather affects me to people who do not understand what I have. Not that I expect everyone to, or want everyone to for that matter. But I get frustrated with myself and my body for getting so tired when cold combined with humid slows me down to a near halt. The entire weekend I had off all I did was laze around and let my arthritis win. I had to make myself get out of bed each day as a consious (sp??) choice. I would have stayed in bed all day of my mind would have let me. Sleep is just better than being awake sometimes.
I went to the arthritis doctor last week and was talking to the nurse about prescriptions and getting them filled (I had an issue with getting the strong drug written prescrip. that I need new each month) and she recently had back surgery and had a prescription for vicodin and she said that she felt weird getting just one filled for the pain after her surgery. And when I was getting one of my prescriptions filled (for vicodin that I usually need as a back-up for when I run out of the stronger stuff or combine with something else when it's a little worse) and the paperwork had not gone through due to confusion of a relayed message the prior week before. And the nurse happened to mention to me that the Pharm. person said something about how many drug stores I go to to get my presciptions filled at (I use three different pharmacies for different things, although I have had a few one time prescrips filled at many different places.) I get the idea that the person that the nurse was thinking that I was either abusing the drugs that I was being prescribed or selling them and I was a dealer. It has just made me feel weird and made me think about how many places I have had prescriptions filled at and what the people behind the counter think of me when I go and pick something up. The nurse told me that she told the person at Bartells that I was not a person that either abuses or sells prescription drugs and not to think of me like that and put me on the good side of people that come and get drugs from their store. I don't know why it has bothered me so much, but I feel like I am snickered at everytime I go and get a pain prescrip. filled. Not just at that store but all of them. I never gave it a second thought before last week, but now I only want one place and want to build a personal relationship with one store and say "FUCK YOU" to all the rest. But damn, I just moved in the past year and my doctor is pretty far away from me at late hours in the business day, so I may occasionally get something filled at a location that is still open so that I am sure to get it filled. Stupid stupid people with their damn looks and comments. I know the world is not perfect, neither are the people in it, but don't they understand that there are other people out there that may not abuse a drug that is "popular" to abuse at the current time, and HEY! they may take it as the doctor actually prescribes?! HEY! maybe, just maybe there are people out there that do not need to sell drugs to make a living and try to do the best they can with what they have. AND maybe I may get something done in the place I am at the time, or just don't know what the correct process is to get something transfered from one pharmacy to another? I am just a person who calls the number on the bottle when I need a refill and if it happens to be at different locations, what do I care, it's not out of my way, it is all within the same stomping grounds (mostly). So in closing, fuck all you people who are in a industry that deals with people who get a anti-biotic every 10 years and people who are struggling with chronic illnesses that need drugs every month and because of our fucked up people these days we can't go get a simple medicine that helps us function day to day without the second looks from those who dispense these and deal with the insurance companies. I have a hard enough time just dealing with what I have going on, I really don't need the petty remarks and thoughts that I know you are thinking to make me go farther back in the darkness that I already live in.

MY view

2007-01-22T00:32:00.000-08:00

I know that I have not written in quite a few months. We finally got moved into our new place and it's all ours. We brought Figaro (my kitten of 12 years) from Mom and Dad's house. Jason is still working his magic at The Jones, which is a short 199 STEPS from door to door (which makes for approx. 2 minute commute) and getting GREAT reviews from local media. The Stranger just gave a review, published released on January 17th, gave a outstanding review which has made business very strong the past week! There is even a picture of Jason (a "action" shot which is slightly blurry)! I am so glad that is is finally getting recognition for his talent for what he does as second nature in the kitchen. I'm glad to be his loving sidekick :)
I am still at The Herbfarm and celebrated 5 years as Dining Room queen back in December of 2006. I still am so grateful for the assistance of Katelyn, a college student who sets up one day a week and does a majority of the linen folding for me. I still really do enjoy my job, which is suprising for someone who usually gets bored with things I HAVE to do, such as ... work.... But really it's kinda funny how every day at work I still like making things all pretty and proper. I guess I have found my so called "calling".
The other aspect of my life, sports, is in a pause for the most part. The Mariners finished the season under .500. Oh well, good thing I have a love for the sport and know that we are still building toward a great run very soon. The Seahawks made the playoffs again! The made for a very interesting run in the two playoff games they were in. In the wildcard playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys it was a "edge of your seat" finish with the home team coming out on top and advancing to the Division playoff round against the Chicago Bears. That game was another exciting game! The Seahawks were viewed as 9 point underdogs and made a game of it going into overtime and eventually giving way to a loss with a field goal made thier kicker Gold after the the Seahawks failed to score on their series. Although, I must commend the Seahawks on a great season dealing with many injuries (of KEY players such as the quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and 2005 NFL MVP Shaun Alexander) All and all they made a great run out of what they had to work with and there were so many close games this season. Josh Brown, in my humble opinion, had to be team MVP. He scored so many crutial points throughout the entire season. Next season the leauge better watch out because the Seahawks are going to dominate all over! I am excited. As far as the playoffs go (and they do go on without Seattle) The Bears defeated the N.O. Saints today to advace in the NFC to the Super Bowl. And in the AFC, the Indiana Colts came back and beat the New England Patriots in a quarterback duel to become the Champions of the AFC in 2006. Super Bowl 41 will be played in Miami and will be a battle of the Chicago Bears and the Indiana Colts. ESPN is reporting the it is the first Super Bowl where not only one African American coach will represent a team, but two! Head coach Dundy for the Colts and Coach Lovie Smith for the Chicago Bears. Enough about football, the loss last week still hurts...

FIGARO STOP MEOWING! this cat is insane and sits and meows just to drive everyone NUTS!! He must miss the outdoors or something, i don't know but I am at my witts end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jason has gone to Southern California for 4 days to set up his brothers fish tank and celebrate Sandy's birthday and Figaro knows that he is gone because he has been NON STOP meowing from 10 pm (when J usually gets off work) until I pass out and can finally ignore it. It's been 3 hours of him meowing and I think I just might have to lock Figaro in the opposite side of the apartment because I can't take it anymore.

I'm going nuts.

Closing time

2006-08-08T23:44:00.000-07:00

We are currently closing the door on the experience at 6247. Our new experience at 1013 will begin shortly. Shifting spaces. That's a good term I think for what we are doing. Our roommates just signed a lease for a house that is on the other side of Roosevelt, we will still be neighbors! I can't tell you how happy that makes me. We are already making plans for meeting nightly at the local bar (not The Jones) The Resivore. It's a dive bar that has pool, shuffleboard, and darts, plus cocktails! I'm not so much a beer drinker but I like mixed drinks. The roomies got back from signing the lease tonight and we celebrated by drinking some beers (for the men and I had rum and coke) and watching the baseball game.
SPEAKING OF BASEBALL!!! what a game tonight! The Seattle Mariners are playing the Devil Rays of Tampa Bay and we were tied 1-1 going into the bottom of the 10th inning. Ichiro got a double leading off the inning, Jose Lopez bunted him over to third on a sacrafice. Then the DR's intentionally walked Adrian Beltre AND Raul Ibanez to get to Richie Sexson! What a mistake that was. Richie Sexson looks at a ball down low for the first pitch. The second pitch was a meatball for him and my goodness, he was HUNGRY! He hit that ball just off the hands for a Grand SLAM homerun over the centerfield fence into the beer garden where it was caught by a young man in a red sweatshirt without a glove! It was a great ending to a great pitchers duel. A game that saw two runs scored through the first nine innings by both teams combined. The Devil Rays were hoping that Sexson would ground into a double play or making a out at any base by having the bases loaded with Mariners, but young teams make young mistakes like that. I think that if I was managing a ML baseball team that I would not have made that same move for the situation. I am just a fan though and maybe nine times out of ten the play would have worked in the Rays favor, but tonight I am so happy that it went Seattle's way. Seattle was swept by the division leading A's over the weekend and made the Mariners fall 6 1/2 games back for the lead in the AL West Division. I know that we are NOT out of the race by any means, but it is so frustrating losing the last 12 games to the damn A's of Oakland. They aren't even that good this year, granted they have a better record than we do, but they are so weak in so many ways. Like I have said from the begining of the season, I really like the chemistry of the team that we have this year. So many players are having good seasons, like Lopez, he was an All Star! A super surpise at second base this year. And Bentencort at short is so amazing, and he is also heating up at the plate recently. He went from hitting about .270 to over .300 in the past three weeks. Ichiro is having a typical Ichiro year hitting well over .300 and steller defensively of course. I could go on and on about each and every player on the roster, but if you don't know about these guys already please, I beg you, tune into the games and watch the product they are putting out there. It's fun to watch. Young phenom Felix Hernandez pitching is fun with his fastballs, Jamie with his changeups, Meche having a wonderful Ace season, and Putz closing the games is a perfect sweet surprise at the bull-pen end of things. Also in the pen, keep an eye on the young guy we brought up a few weeks ago by the name of Mark Lowe. Went from AA to the Majors in the matter days. He has been lights out and has the eye of a bulldog, never scared and wanting the ball every game.

That's all for now. Must close shop and get rest before we open for business again.

Anne

June 26th, 2006

2006-06-26T16:47:00.000-07:00

It's a warm one today! (this is the same post I put on Bebo.com..... I know) WHATEVER!)

It's Monday afternoon and it's a warm day for the Seattle area today. I don't know what the actual temp is, but maybe in the high 80's ? It feels so muggy in the house, maybe I shouldn't have watered all of the plants this morning... Oh well, they need it. I thought that taking a cool shower would help this morning, but ever since I have just been "glistening". Jason is very sympathetic and wanted to buy me a air conditioner before he had to go to work, but I'm doing ok. I found that I can sit out on the porch and have my little lap top out here with me and type to my little hearts content with the lovely breeze that we have. Plus, I get to see all of the people going home from work and laugh at them because I have the day off today. HAHAHA. I guess they laugh at me when i have to work on the weekends... We are all even I suppose. Jason usually has Monday and Tuesday off with me, but this week he has changed the schedule so that he is off when his brother comes to visit this weekend. He is keeping his mustache as a surprise for Sandy and MJ even though it is irritating him. He shaved this morning and almost shaved it off, but I helped him through and reminded him how funny it will be when Sandy sees him and how silly he looks with it. Only a few more days of the hairy upper lip for my honey. I need to get a few more pictures, I only have two and one of them is him asleep and i know I will get in trouble if i post that one on any public family picture place. My silly husband, I'm glad that he is a slave to "fashion" sometimes, he makes me laugh. Laughing is good medicine.

Speaking of medicine!! I finally got my Humira! It seems like it has been such an ordeal to get the prescription again. First I had to have the doctor call it in, then it didn't come, so i called the pharm. and they said the insurance needed a pre-auth. because the one I had on file was expired... So then I had to call the doctor again and have them fax the insurance co. Then I had to call the pharm. again and have them try to run the prescription again. They then told me that regence hadn't received the letter from the doctor... so i call the office again and tell the doc's assistant Kerry to try again... I then call back the pharmacy and ask them to try to run it again and this time it works! Yeah baby yeah! I get my drugs!!! right...? well....The shipping department calls to make sure that I'll be home to receive the shipment and be able to get it in the fridge since they overnight it, I called back and didn't get a hold of the person who called me, but I had a message delivered to her that i would be able to receive it as soon as they could send it. Somehow the address got mixed up in the transfer of the message and was sent to the wrong house. When i noticed that my card had been charged and I still hadn't received my medicine (which is weird, it usually is at my house, in my fridge by the time i notice that my card has been charged) I call the pharmacy back and ask what the deal is and they confirm the address with me (the one that is on file in the computer, not the incorrect address) and tell me that it is most likely on it's way and will be there tomorrow. Well, tomorrow comes and goes and I still have no medicine, so I call back and be annoying asking where are my drugs dude?! They say they will leave Shirley in shipping another message and make sure it's been shipped. I say ok. The next morning at about 9:30 AM I get a call from Shirley in shipping and she apologizes that it had come back to the Portland office and they are sending me out a new bunch of medicine because it had been delivered to the wrong address.... She asked if they had called and let me know and was surprised that I didn't know. Anyways, Shirley confirmed MY address and sent a new bunch of drugs out to me that I got on Friday morning. Jason put all of my little shots in the fridge before he went to pick up Jody from his surgery and all is well with Humira after quite a ordeal to actually get the drug to me. I took my first shot in some months on Saturday morning and it wiped me out. I ended up sleeping most of the day Saturday (which I have off now!) and slept until 6 AM Sunday morning when i had to get up for work. Then after plans for Paul's birthday dinner ended up falling through, I slept from about 5:45-6 to about 9 am this morning with a few hours of awake time with Jason when he got home from work at about 11:30. I haven't taken a nap YET today, but I think that's just because I can't find a cool enough spot. If i had a breezy chair out on this deck of ours, I just might take a snooze. I am trying my best to keep hydrated during the warm weather, and for all of you that know me, it's a big challenge. So I better go refill my glass with some water and drink it down, I think that I'll get a straw and make it fun! Yes, I am a big dork, and I don't care, at least I'm something!

Tell someone you care about them,

Anne

Fun Weekend

2006-06-21T01:56:00.000-07:00

My weekends start Sunday afternoon, when most peoples start Friday afternoon. This Sunday was Father's Day. I met my Dad, Mom, and oldest brother Thomas at the Seattle Center for our annual trip to the Washington State Micro Brewery Festival. In past years it has been at the Herbfarm and then for a stretch at St. Edwards Park near Kenmore. The festival has live music, a few food stands and of course lots of local beer makers offering their creations in small little souvineer cups. I offered to be the designated driver this year since I couldn't make it to Seattle until after I got off of work. I got there around 4 o'clock and all three of them had been drinking since about 2:00 and were well on their way to beer happiness. I was hungry and bought a HUGE burrito that I couldn't finish. Thomas had purchased extra taste tickets once I got there and had the last of the breweries that they wanted to try. It was so funny how drunk my mom got, she was a little louder than she normally is :) And she kept rubbing my back, it was endearing knowing that I'm not the only one that gets talkitive when she drinks.... Or maybe that's where I got it from??!! Paul couldn't make it to the festival (WEIRD, since he is a BEERMASTER himself) because he was finishing up his dive training for when he and Tara go on their trip to the Solomon Islands in a few weeks. He finished up with his class at about the same time that Dad and crew were done drinking the beers at the Center. We made a plan to go back to Tara and Paul's house for some pizza. We ordered from Pagliagi's (? or how ever they spell it, it's the place on 80th and LCW) It was very tastey, although I wasn't very hungry at all from that huge giant burrito that i had about 2 hours prior. Paul was so thoughtful on his way home and picked up some beers, just in case they hadn't gotten their fill at the beer festival. I think everyone that went to the festival took a beer, but I know Daddy didn't finish his, my mom did and I think Thomas not only finished his beer, but he also POLISHED off 5 pieces of pizza and a breadstick in pizza dipping sauce topped off with crushed red peppers that I added and Mom dared him to eat it all for ten bucks. He ate it and said it was pretty warm, I'm not sure if Mom made good on the bet or not... Funny what boys will do when you dare them.... Eat weird stuff, grow mustaches, get married! Oh wait, the getting married was me....
But Jason grew a mustache and kept it for over 2 weeks with 4 contestents at 40 dollars each. Jason won when 2 of the men dropped out after 4 days, and the other gave in this past Saturday. The story with the 3rd guy that dropped out for Jason to win was that he went out on Friday and was trying to pick up chicks and when they couldn't stop looking at the stache and apparently lost out on "some good tail" he shaved it the next day and my honey is the winner! Jason is now doing his "victory lap". I got a picture of the mustache when he was sleeping but I know he won't let me post that one so I have to get a awake photo before he shaves it. Although i mentioned that today and he said that I would have a lot of opportunities when his brother is in town in about 10 days... HE'S KEEPING IT THAT LONG!!! My goodness it looks silly. We were out shopping today and I couldn't stop myself from giggling at him for how silly it looks. But it looks better than Adam Morrison's from Gonzaga, i think that's his name. All he needs is a trucker hat and some cop glasses and he could be dressed up for Halloween.
We were at GameStop seeing if Jason wanted a new game with his winnings. He found a game for the little gameboy but also discovered the games on the Nintendo DS are very cool and now wants one of the those. I wish that he could wait until his birthday to get it, but I know he can't. I would love to surprise him with that and this new puzzle game that he was drooling over, it looks very fun. It even has Sudoku! The DS has cool puzzle games. I guess J bought the first Nintendo for tetris (I knew there was a reason I married him) and another platform for other puzzle games. So I know he can't wait for his birthday.
Anyways I'll try to write more.

Anne

Weekend is over

2006-05-10T02:34:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday morning, 1:50 am and I should be heading up to bed, I am even a little tired. But I don't want to let go of my weekend yet. My back is still bothering me quite a bit and it feels ok if I just sit and play with my puzzle books. It was SO nice to have Jason for two whole days! We went to the Seattle Coin Shop and bought some silver today. It has doubled in price since last September! I bought Jason a 10 ounce silver bar for our anniversary last year and today he bought 15 ounces, so he is starting to build his “retirement fund” as he calls it. He said it is the funnest way to save ever! And although i wish that he could save in an old fashioned way sometimes, I will take what i can get!! He is spending money, but someday I suppose we can cash it in if we need to or if the price keeps on the rise than we can trade it in for larger bars?... I dunno, he is happy with his new toys and i guess that is what matters. I like him to be happy and to have him clinking his silver for a few days is ok with me! He keeps on talking about wanting gold, but gold is getting soooooo expensive. I was watching my jewelry shows today and they announced that gold has gone over 700.00 an ounce! It was at 680.00 last week. Crazy stuff in the precious metals these days. I should have pushed Jason to buy me a big old white gold ring last year when the prices were a little better! Maybe that should be my angle now, buy before it gets any higher!! Yeah, I like that idea!!! Anyways, after we bought the silver at Jason favorite store, we headed to the University Village and went to Barnes and Noble. We spent quite a bit of time there just browsing. I got two new puzzle books, one sudoku and one acrostic puzzle book. Both are very addictive and help keep my mind fresh and thinking. I also picked up the new Anita Shrive book that finally came out on paperback, A Wedding in December. I also found a book on flower arranging and general info about florals that i wanted, but didn't buy there, i went onto amazon and found it used for I think 2.39, a bargain! After the bookstore we needed to go home because walking was very painful for me and i needed to get some heat and rest to my back. AND it was nearing baseball time so we needed to head for the barn anyways. It was just before six o'clock and the parking on the northbound lane was almost allowed, but not quite, so we decided to go to the store and pick up some things that we needed for the house. We went to Rite Aid and i tend to find way too many items to buy there..... I was browsing and finding things that i could use, but defiantly don't need, so I insisted that we leave promptly. We arrived home at half past six and Jody was playing the 360, of course Jason joined him and i grabbed my new puzzle book and headed for the other game room to watch the ball game.

Good baseball game! The Mariners beat the Devil Rays 8-1 with a great pitching performance by Felix Hernandez and Rafael Sorriano. I have to admit that i did fall asleep during the sixth inning right after Carl Everett hit a home run. I have been so sleepy the last few weeks. I just can't stay awake. This week is going to be hard hard hard. Not only are we serving on Thursday this week and starting all summer long, we are serving lunch on Sunday and we have a small private party on Monday. So there are 5 SERVICE days plus a prep-day. I need to talk to Carrie and tell her that I just can't do it. Last week just about did me in and that was a short week. And I had a helper everyday that i worked! I think i do need to retire. Jason is right. I at least need to take some time off. And NOT work while on vacation like i did during the break. Whatever, it will all work itself out in time, i just have to make it through, and i always do. Just one day or week at a time. It will be easier now that J has a true weekend every week now. I won't feel so bad for him working his tail off all of the time. He already seems so much more relaxed and happier. I think that also has something to do with the premium gaming/entertainment center that we have. It was so funny, i was watching the game on the TV in the play station room and the Mariners scored, so Jason came in to watch the replay and he laughed at the TV. It is a 27” and it does seem small compared to what we have now, but a month ago we were watching a TV that was only a few inches larger than that 27” and it seemed large. Now we just laugh, we love the new plasma so much. It already fits in to our house so well. And the x-box games are so impressive on it. The cable upgrade that we got is amazing as well. I didn't think it could make that much of a difference for the regular channels, but it is so much better. It almost looks HD, not quite as nice, but so much better than what the old cable box gave us. We have a good entertainment center going on. We are very very lucky.

I've gotten back on my baking thing again. I made another angel food cake and bought more strawberries to go with it this weekend. I also made banana bread last week that was so tasty. I brought some into work for Ashley and Joe and the same day Sara had baked muffins and given them to Steve to bring in for us, so i had a little contest, mine was SO much better! Not to brag, but it was just better flavor and hers had walnuts and chocolate chips. In my personal opinion, banana bread or banana muffins shouldn't have either chocolate chips or nuts of any kind. So that's why mine were better. But it also had a better texture and over all flavor, so never mind, i will be cocky and say that mine beat hers fair and square! I have been wanting to make cookies ever since we got the kitchen aid back from The Jones a few months ago, but I just haven't done it yet. I would also like to try to make a cake from scratch, which I can't imagine is too difficult, I just have not ever done it before. I made waffles this morning to use some of the massive amount of strawberries that we have. Those were good, I added cinnamon to the batter. I have had a craving for cinnamon lately. They were good, i put so many strawberries on there it was like the waffle was buried, as it should be! I also want to try my hand again at baking bread, yeasted bread. I have had bad luck with recipes containing yeast in the past. So i would like to conquer that one and make some yummy warm fresh bread. There is nothing better than warm bread from the oven with some butter..... yummy!

I guess I had better be a good adult and try to go to sleep now, at least go up to bed and pretend that I'm going to try to sleep. It would be good for the people around me tomorrow. So thanks for reading and goodnight, or good day if that is the case.

Lots of love, Anne

Review

2006-05-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

I had my review on Thursday afternoon. It was a good review, as everyone told me it would be. However, I came away with a sad feeling. I have asked to have them hire someone to help me on a daily/weekly basis. So i will be working 3 days, 4 days TOPS most weeks. Carrie understood that my body is breaking down and I just don't have much of a life the way things are going now, so they needed to change. She has already put together a job description for the job, but apparently we have had very few applicants coming by. I'm hoping that since school is almost out that a high school student that will want some work this summer will wander on by. I think once we find the right person I will begin to feel much better. I think once it sinks in that i will be part time, i will also be a much happier person. Like another weight lifted off my shoulders. We'll see. I will write more later, I have to finish breakfast and get to work. I have a helper today to get me through this latest bout with back pain. Tysan is coming in for about an hour or two to help walk the stemware to the dining room and set out the flatware for me to place at each setting. SO I'd better get a move on!

Much Love,

Anne

May 2nd, 2006

2006-05-03T01:12:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. Jason had the day off and next week he will actually have two days off in a row! That is the rumor at least, who knows what will actually happen since every time he is supposed to have a “weekend” something happens such as someone quits, goes on vacation, or they get an awesome review which requires him to work more to keep the quality of his menu to his standards. They have finally got enough staff and they are stable enough for him to be comfortable with leaving for two whole days! That makes for a happy wife in me at home. We spent the first part of our day sleeping in, as usual. I got up a while before Jason and watched episode 19 and 20 of Carnivale on HBO on Demand. (Carnivale is a very good series on HBO if anyone is interested in 24 episodes of good television) Jason got me hooked on that series and watched those two episodes after he got home from work last night and I was asleep upstairs. When he came to bed, he told me about how he watched number 19 and the HAD to watch episode 20 because to was so good! So of course I had to watch it this morning while HE was sleeping. He was right, they were good ones. I'm sad though because there are only 4 more episodes total before the series ends. I thought there was another season, but i went online today and found out different. Anywhoo, HBO releases only a bunch of episodes at a time each month, so now we have to wait until May 21 or 22 for the series finale episodes. I saw a few pictures of them online today and i think it will be RIVITING! HBO has made some damn good made for TV series. We got into ROME, Entourage, Six Feet Under, and of course, Carnivale. It's almost a tease though when they only release half a dozen episodes a month. But I love the on demand feature that cable provides, it has been really cool for us. Once the new season of Lost comes out (it's on ABC and NOT on demand) I think we might invest in the DVR that comcast offers. All in due time though, we will be living in a new place by that time, and who knows what the finaces will be at that time with my health the way it has been the past two years. The DVR just may have to wait.

Speaking of new places to live! I went onto craigslist tonight and started to look at a few North Seattle neighborhoods to see what the prices are. I searched in Maple Leaf since that is close to The Jones and there were only 2 offical listings for Maple Leaf. I also searched for Roosevelt and only found a bunch of apartments. I think that we would like to have some sort of yard for when we get my little dog. I think that it is a must actually since i know i won't be getting up and walking behind my little pooch with plastic baggies every morning. It's just not in me. It's still pretty early to be looking for housing since we won't be out of this house for a few more months, but i suppose it doesn't hurt to get an idea of what we will be paying and looking for areas we are interested in.

I am so excited to get my puppy. I think J is too. He tries to play it off like he isn't, and that he's put off by the fact of getting a weiner dog, but everytime moving comes up that is the thing he brings up, getting a little dog. He kinda says it like “Yeah, we gotta get her the little dog cause we got the plasma...” then he askes if we should just get the mastif first. He is so cute. I just have to remind him that we are getting MY doggie first, then his dog and he says “i know, i know, the weiner dog first, cause we got the plasma...”

We were at Scott's Birthday BBQ tonight and we were talking to Wayne about pets and them farting. It was so funny because he was talking about how the smaller the animal the worse the farts, or as he put it, their “poofs” Apparently Wayne and Stacey's cat “poofs” and it isn't so bad, but Wayne's mother's cat has a little tiny dog that lets the WORST poofs ever. He told us a story of the first time Stacey met the little doggie and she was petting it and having a good time, then all of the sudden she got a goofy look on her face and set the dog down. Of course I had to counter with the story of when we were on our way from Reno to Lake Tahoe and we were in the backseat with Crusie. Brunie and Jim had been feeding the poor dog hot dogs for some reason and she had these farts that would put your gag reflex in full effect! We had to pull the car over once because we thought that Crusie might need to do some business out in the wilderness, but it turned out that she was constipated from the hot dogs and we just had to deal until she relaxed and worked through it. I have never in my life smelled something so bad from something so nice as a dog. And of course her butt was in MY direction because she was so excited to see Jason again she had her head in his lap to get lovin from him..... THOSE were more than “poofs”

That's all I'm gonna write for now, but i took some pictures at the BBQ, so i will download them to the computer and post some soon! Goodnight.

I like flowers

2006-05-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

I like this picture too. I have the day off! HA!

2006-04-29T01:04:00.000-07:00

Just too tired to post tonight.

I worked and got off at 3 again today. I made it home in time for the baseball game and folded the entire game, which is fantastic because i can go home early again tomorrow! But it has worn me out for the second day in a row. I took extra prednisone tonight to try to curb the inflamation tomorrow. I took quite a lot of pain meds when i got home because of all the folding my hand was getting swollen. I've been drinking more water than usual, but if anyone that knows my water intake, it's probably still not enough. With the prednisone I know i need to keep the water intake high. On this note I think i will drink a glass of water and go to sleep. Gotta rise early and get to work so that i can get home and rest :)

Love anne

2006-04-28T01:04:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the pills to kick in so that I can sleep before work tomorrow. I did so much folding at home this week that i think that I want to get back in the habit so that i can skip out of work in the afternoon instead of early evening. I left today at just about 3:00 PM and it felt so good to be driving home and get home with a reasonable time to nap and relax. I hardly knew what to do with myself! I had all of the menu napkins done for the weekend as of yesterday and i had also gotten the replacement napkins for Thursdays dinner done ahead of time, so as soon as i got the dining room set all i had to as far as folding was the wash cloths for the guest restrooms. It was like the good ol days when i had nearly all of the folding done and all i had to do was the actual setting of the dinning room. I didn't get to work until 9:30 this morning and i still felt like i got a LOT done. I had the extra time that i would have spent on folding on organizing and helping out the messy pantry area. Our pantry steward that we recently hired pretty much walked out last Saturday night. She said that she felt "ill" and called the next day and said that she wasn't coming back. I don't think that she was a good fit, personally. She wasn't organized and wasn't very detail oriented, two things that are nearly a must for that position. We are busy this weekend as well, so i don't know who is going to fill in, but i suppose that i can do recieving and try to keep the glass room tidy for a while until we find a new person. Jihoon has been coming in a few times a week, and Carolyn has made a few appearances since she gave notice. It's so hard to keep good pantry people, well at least the backup pantry position. In the time that I've been working in the D.R. we have had two stable pantry people, Jess and Carolyn. Everyone else just seems to fade away or takes the position to try to get their foot in the door either for server or kitchen. I suppose that it would work in some cases, but not in the ones so far. I want my brother Thomas to start serving, i think he would be a great asset to the team, plus i could boss him around once a week on prep days! But seriously, the herbfarm needs a few good servers, seems like we have had a MAJOR dry spell in hiring the past year!! I wish that they could offer Thomas what he needed to come and be happy. Maybe Tom should just go back to school and work nights at the herbfarm?

My review has been set for Thursday at 1 PM. I don't really know what to expect from it. It seems like from June to November i was a rock star employee, then i got another infection and got really tired. I got grumpy, and i think that i got really frustrated at life and every day things. Since December i have been struggling and i don't know how that will effect my review. I should mention that, i suppose. We'll see.

I'm not sleepy, I'm not sleepy. I'm not sleepy. I want to be sleeping again! I picked up Jason from work, we drove Joe home to Northgate and came home so that Jason could play with our roommates on the 360 and the new HDTV. It's so funny how this fighting/boxing game is such a boy game. They are saying that it is the best game ever made and especially with the HD. They are all so into it. I laugh, i don't fully understand it, it looks like a regular game to me, but there is something special about Fight Night Round 3!!

I was watching QVC today and they had a 4 hour Gem Fest show on this afternoon. Most of the jewelry was ok, nothing i felt like i had to have until the last hour! There was a diamond circle pendent with a button white pearl set in the bottom of the circle. It was so pretty! It was also set in white gold, which is my favorite metal. It was a little pricey at about 175 bones, but it was soooo pretty. When i was jewelry shows i don't usually see pieces that i feel that i need to have, but i felt that i wanted that one. I know i can't give in to any of it because it will be all over when i start ordering jewelry from the shows. I'll turn into one of the ladies that call in and say that they have already ordered too much that day... I can't be affording to get myself into that!! And the last time i thought that i HAD to have it, i told Jason, he ordered it for me and when the fed ex package came the jewelry had been stolen out of the box and the empty little boxes left on our porch.... That made me very sad and i haven't been able to even think about getting another order. All i have actually ordered off the TVshows are parcels of loose gems, which are so much fun because you don't really know what you are going to get. The last parcel that i got it was guarenteed that you got a aquamarine, a sapphire, and a ruby. They were small, but i was happy, and I have another 100 carats to add to my collection. It was my Valentines Day present from my honey. I just need to get the case to store them in. I got some really nice stones that i want to make into pieces. Some big ones that would make beautiful pendents. Some matched stones that would be wonderful for ear rings, and some others that would be lovely as rings, i also have lots of little stones that i can use as accent stones. If i only knew where to go to get the castings and things for making it. It will be my newest hobby once my hands get stronger.

My poor little right hand is a little swollen from all of the folding that i have done the past few days. I also did some ironing on Monday for work. I'm nearly caught up with the ironing, but we are busy this weekend, which means i better do some ironing during the game on friday so that i don't get too backed up again. On that note i think i will stop writing about work because it means that i'm thinking too much about work and i don't wanna right now. So good night, gonna go play some sudoku!

Goodnight,

Anne

My Bridal Bouquet

2006-04-25T04:22:00.000-07:00

I'm very proud of the bouquet that I made for our wedding reception. The flowers consisted of white and dark red roses, pink tulips, burgundy gerbera daisies, white freesia, wax flower, and babies breath. I put it together myself and wrapped the stems in tulle and ribbon. It was very beautiful and it made me feel beautiful holding it that night. The day of the wedding reception was one of the most fun days i have ever had. I love flowers :)

Bigger version of the picture below

2006-04-25T04:11:00.000-07:00

Here we go, this shows it better in our living room than the last picture

Photo of the new toy

2006-04-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

This is our new tv. If you know of anyone that wants a 32 inch sony, give us a call! We have upgraded to a 50" PLASMA HDTV baby!!

2006-04-25T01:05:00.000-07:00

Arthritis sucks.

I have been struggling mightily the past few months with this damn disease. I have been trying and trying but i get so frustrated sometimes. I really do try to keep a positive attitude, but some days i don't want to be positive, i don't want to be weak and i certinly don't want the stresses that come with the stupid disease. I keep thinking about what all of the pain meds are doing to my liver, what they are doing to my stomach, what it is doing to my brain. The last two years have been near torture on my body. It has had too many surgeries, too much pain medication and so much weight put on I just don't know how the damn thing keeps adapting. I hate complaining, yet i keep feeling the need to pour my heart out onto the blog or something like that so that i don't drag actual people into my minds own battle with it's self. Wait, what am i saying, i love complaining, i do it all the time. And it's absolutly wonderful to write it all. It's lovely having an outlet to write at. In fact i love that i can write about how much something sucks and knowing that it's out there in the world somewhere, and someone can read it and take what they want from it and i don't have to respond to it. I think that helps a lot. I like talking to my honey about things that bother me, but i don't always want to bring him down or know how much little things bother me sometimes. I think that is natural. It's almost like having a therapist without actually having the person writing in their notebook about how messed up my mind is. I know that I'm struggling, but I have family there to tell me all of that i don't need to pay for someone to tell me what i already know. And i have my doctor there to prescribe me the crazy pills to help me numb to it all.

I was talking to my cousin last week about depression and it really was comforting knowing that there is someone else out there that has had the same thoughts about "going crazy" as i have had. I think it made her feel better too. Maybe it is something in our family that chemically wrong. We both had nutty thoughts about silly things and knew that we shouldn't be feeling that way and yet couldn't help it. I knew that i had to get on medication for that reason and so did she. It helps to have a support system there, even if you don't talk to them constantly, just knowing that they are there if you need em is comforting.

At the shower someone asked me, i can't remember who, what my feelings and thoughts were about depression. I don't know how many people knew that i was on meds for it, but i told them that i had been on zoloft for about two years and i thought that it worked really well for about a year, and now i don't think it is working as well. I feel like i'm slipping back to where i was before. I think i should contact my doctor or at least the Kerry and see what i should do about the dose, either go higher or switch to another medicine all together. I should also ask what the side effects are long term of this stuff. Some of the depression medication commercials say something about sexual side effects, is that long term or immediate? I really need to ask more questions when i go to the doctor. I always feel rushed to get out of there though... Maybe i need to switch doctors too. Fuck, maybe i should just move out to another state and start all over. I know J is ready to go. I just don't want to go away from my family. I almost can't stand to think of moving too far away and not seeing my family but once or twice a year. It would like be leaving my entire support system. I think Jason realizes this and that's why we havn't gone anywhere and he has lessened talks of going to Las Vegas. Although i think it would be cool to go down to southern california and work with Brunie. But i don't think Jason would be happy down there. He hates how hot it gets down there and there aren't any places that he really Wants to cook at. ANyways i just don't think i want to deal with finding all of the new life things that come with moving to a new city. I wouldn't be happy at all for a while.

So dis-organized. This post has to be one of the worst rants that i have had for a long time. I "almost" feel bad actually posting it, but oh well, sometimes i have to do it. I wanted to punch something so bad tonight but what is the point when it is just pain instead of getting the aggression out. I thought about it and is it really worth damaging my hand for a bad day and knowing how my hand loves getting infected, it would just be begging for it. I don't want another surgery. It's been nearly 5 months since the last procedure and that's been the longest in a while. I just can't seem to get down on the prednisone. I took 17 mg yesterday at work and i could feel the effects that it had and i don't know why it makes me so mad that it actually does what it is suppose to do. I got all the way down to 12 mg and i was very achy with some of the storms that have come through and i just can't seem to stay awake. So of course i think that i should take more pain meds, and that makes me feel guilty and know that my poor liver is going through hell. And i forget that prednisone is there to help too, but it's also so bad for me. And when i start taking more prednisone i get bigger and bigger. So what is better? being fat and very unhappy, but less achy, or the alternative or being achy and taking the pain medication and sleeping all of the time and trying my best not to get too much more overweight? And when i take more prednisone i can't sleep at night and my insurance just doesn't cover enough ambien to make it work so that i can actually make it to my job the next day. They tell me to get out in the sun during the "good" part of the sunny day and the natural daylight will adjust my clock, but hell no, it doesn't work that way with me. When i work i am done when i get home. What am i supposed to do? I have to work to have the insurance, and we need the money, i have to work. I have to have the medications to make it so that i can work, but what are they doing to me? Can i live with the consiquenses in the future? What are they going to be? In ten years what is Jason going to have to take care of? Do i really want to do that to him? Or do i want to drug myself so much that i am like a normal human being and just shorten my lifespan so that i can actually have a wonderful time? These are decisions that i struggle with on an everyday basis. Some days it's worse that others. Tonight is pretty bad, i don't usually think too far into the future and what will happen to my body, but i have been so frustrated with no being able to lose the weight that i am at a loss to what i can ever do. I hate coming to the conclusion that i will gain more weight just to feel like i can put in 35 hours at work. And i feel like i should be working more and helping out my co-workers more, but my body is just about done and it makes me so fucking grumpy. I think i actually made one person quit last week because i just got annoyed and didn't want to be nice anymore. The person was new and was asking dumb questions and i was sick of it so i was giving short answers. Then she got this puppy dog look and started slinking around, the next day i find out that she went home "ill" and called in sick on sunday. Jess talked to her and i guess she asked her to find someone to fill her shift and have Carrie call her, so basically it sounds like she is quitting. Too much for that one i guess. She seemed ok, but didn't like the thought of working too hard or jumping right into a job with both feet. She had a chance to put herself in there and be a rockstar, but she bailed and that's no good in my book. Whatever. Maybe I'll go in tomorrow and do some recieving and take in the ironing and folding that i did today. I'll see what's goin on in the am, i'll call the office and see.

I have been so grumpy and sad lately. I guess i don't like all of the deadlines that were upon me this past few months with the reception and stuff. I feel like i'm letting down all of my friends and family by sleeping all of the time. I still havn't gotten my brother a birthday present. I hardly spend time with Nickki and she lives so much closer than she did a few years ago. She is my best friend and one of the most thoughtful people i know and i just sleep away the time. I want to be awake, i want energy, i want to be thin again. I have Jason and i am so lucky for that but i still sleep away that time that i should be savoring with him. He loves me, he supports me and gives me more than i deserve. He offered to get me a dog so that the doggie could get me better and i could quit my job and get healthy. When we move he said that we are going to get a dog and i could stay home and take care of the puppy and the house and have muffins ready for him everyday when he gets home from work. I could do all the things i love like cleaning and baking and taking care of our pets. I can watch baseball and jewelry televison all day if i want to. But i still need health insurance so I came up with the idea of talking to Carrie and quitting my everyday job there and just continue doing the folding and ironing for the Herbfarm, but at home. It would be about 15 hours a week i would guess. Maybe i could go in two days a week when i drop off the folding and do some office work, like logging and bagging the reservations, or maybe do the prep-days and the folding and ironing? I think i would just have to cut my work load in half. I just don't know what the future holds for this body of mine. I can't get healthy and i don't know what it's going to take to get there. I need to keep moving and that is one thing that i love about my job now, I am walking around the restaurant for about 3 of the hours that i am there. I don't want a desk job because i know that i would just sit there and snack all day long. I know me and that is not something that i can do right now. With all the prednisone a desk job is not something that i should do. I was thinking today about when we get a dog, and i would have a little partner if i wanted to start walking, even though i have always been wary of walking dogs and having other dogs come up and fighting. Must have been the childhood trauma of being attacked by a dog that has led me to be so wary of that.
But i am so excited to have a dog and a pal. I am so happy with being married to Jason and what our relationship is. He is such a good man, he has some learning to do, but of course so do i. I think I am a good wife so far. I sleep too much, i feel bad when i can't pick Jason up from work because i'm sleeping. He says he doesn't care and it doesn't matter, but when his feet have been hurting i want to be able to pick him up and save him from the pain. The new shoes have helped, but the pain is still there.

We have to move in August. I don't think that we have decided if we are going to continue living with our roommates or not. It sounded like Jason thought we were going to find a place on our own, but i don't know if we can afford it, especially if i cut back on my working. I have already told Carrie that I need to cut back to 4 days permanently. Maybe i should cut it back to 3 and have my 4th day at home. I could work prep day, and the first two days of service, then they can find a high school student to work the weekends and i will do the folding for them and it would be grand. That would be absolutly ideal. But who knows what cvd will say. I never know with her, sometimes you think you have her pegged and then she surprises you with something out of left field. I often wonder what Ron thinks of me and the job that i do. He isn't ever at my review, but he has input on the paperwork that is filled out for the actual review... I dunno, it is so strange how the herbfarm is run. I think they hire some great people and they have some great things going on there, it is a good place to work for the family style enviroment, but on the opposite side people that are actually family are treated as employees at times when it seems odd.... I guess that could just be the people or person i'm thinking of.

So this post is completly about all the things that are bugging me and it's all so messy and unorganized. The way my mind has been feeling as of late. I'm glad that the reception is over, it was one of the funnest days of my life, i truely enjoyed the party 110%. I loved that my parents finally met Jason's parents and everyone made it. There were so many people it was a little overwhelming, and they all brought gifts! So many wonderful gifts, now i need to get the Thank You's out. I can hardly wait to get the pictures back from the disposible cameras. I transfered the pictures of the cake that i had on my camera and ordered prints from shutterfly. The party was so much fun, and the food was so yummy from what i heard. The cake was fantastic! I had some of that and when we cut it and ate the first bite, Jason didn't even shove it in my face like i thought that he would! When we talked about that a few days later and i told him that i was surprised that he didn't smear it all over my face and he told me "of course I wouldn't do that, you are my honey, I love you" It was such a sweet response and something that he would say, it makes me feel so good inside that i know that we are good together. He makes me smile.
Speaking of the party last week when we were at Costco for the first time together with our new membership, we pasted the meat section and the beef tenderloin was a pretty good price, so i told him that i only got one slice of the tenderloin from the party, so we bought the smallest package of tenderloin that they had, which was still 5 steaks and over 20.00. Anyway we bought it so that i could have some. It is things that Jason does like that, that make me feel special. I don't know what i would do without him, he really holds me together. I don't think that i could have made it through the past two years without him holding my hand. I am so thankful for him. I can't really even put it into words. Even when i get so frustrated at my life and what's going on, he brings me back to a better level. Now I'm getting all mushy, it always happens when i start to think of what Jason does for me and how he helps me. Now I guess I better stop since i have gone from being so frustrated to just wanting to go give my honey a big hug. He's watching a movie on our new television and i think i will join him. goodnight or goodday, whatever the case may be for you. Sorry about the ranting, sometimes i just gotta have it out there in the world.

Geez, i go back and read what i just typed and i won't realize what i have put down tomorrow. Thoughts run through my mind when i'm grumpy and it fades when i actually record it, like it has to be typed to be erased.

Our new toy!

2006-04-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

This past week Jason and I went to Costco and bought something that we have been drooling over for a long time, a HDTV Plasma TV. It is 50 inches of plasma goodness! We both couldn't be happier with it! We don't have the HD tv programing yet, but soon enough. Jason is thrilled with the biggness and beautiful picture that the X-Box 360 has now, so do the roommates. They have been playing Fight Night 3 a lot lately, which those of you who aren't into the gaming world is a boxing game. The graphics are pretty cool and it amazes me how good and real they are all getting. Anyways as I sit and watch it feels like it belongs in our living room and doesn't look out of place at all, in fact I forget that it is so large until I leave the house and come back hours later. You all should come and experience the HDTV sometime! Come meet our newest baby :) Pictures to follow.

(April 25th, 06-- Look up above for the pictures!)

Second post of the new year, I'm on a ROLL, BABY!

2006-04-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

Two posts in a matter of a few days must be some sort of record for me on this blog this year! okok so i just feel like playing with my computer and this is just as good as playing a game of spider solitaire. I was thinking on my way to work today that i don't think that i wrote at all about the trip that Jason and I took to Las Vegas this past February. We saw the Blue Man Group, which i must go into detail another time since it was such an amazing show, i recommend it to anyone who goes to Vegas and has a couple hours to spare. They do some very cool visual things and just plain ol silly things, but anyways, i will stir up my memories and jot them down soon.

I felt pretty good in the latter half of the day today. After i got off work i stopped by Rite Aid and got two presciptions filled. I hadn't ever gotten anything filled there before, but it's more convinient than the bartells up on Roosevelt, the Rite Aid is on 35th on my way home from work on 80th or 85th, so not too far no matter if i have to get a refill when i'm not on my way home from work. I like that store, it's nice and bright and they seem to have a lot of gardening stuff, i picked up a bigger watering can that i currently have so that when we have our container garden this summer it will be easier to get them their food. I'm a dork. Such a dork.

I've been enjoying the new HDTV plasma that we bought a lot. I came home from work and instead of going upstairs and falling asleep while laying in bed watching the game, i brought folding from the herbfarm home with the hope that i would stay awake and actually get some work done from home while watching the baseball game. It worked today! I got 3 full bundles of linens folded for the weekend and i think i will save the menu napkins for sunday and do some extra replacements tomorrow so that all of the linens are folded and i can get out of work early! I think i also could use it for tomorrow and bring home more for sunday and that way i am getting paid to watch baseball while folding, i could also do some ironing and try to get caught up with that too.

pills just kicked in, goodnight

love anne

First post of 2006

2006-04-19T04:50:00.000-07:00

My bridal shower

(thanks for a great time girls!!)

It is April 18^th and Nickki threw a bridal shower for me today. She invited about 25 people including all the girls in our family, which of course is half the group, but Jessica Ritchie is the ONLY person that wasn't family that came. And only two people called and said that they couldn't make it. HOW EMBARASSING!!! It would have been almost better if Jess hadn't been able to make it so that i wouldn't have to feel so bad that I have no friends. It was a great little party and i had a good time but it was really really embarrassing that no one showed up. Nickki is such a good friend and i love her to death for doing something so special for me. And Jessica is a sweetheart too because she wanted to throw me a party as well and Nickki just started planning before she did. Anyways, Angel, Debra, Emily, Kaylie, Kim, my Mom, Nickki and I were the attendees. Austin came in half way through the party and joined us, as did Cohen when he woke up from his nap. He is such a happy baby, it's so cute to smile at him and have him smile so big that his eyes nearly close.

Nickki had the theme of the party as “Las Vegas” with colors of black and red for the suits of playing cards, and asked the guests to wear something either shinny, sparkley, or simply red or black. I chose to wear black pants with my brown rhinestone v-neck shirt with my sparkley heels that i got for my reception. My mom looked beautiful with her new flowing red shirt and black skirt. It was so much fun helping her shop a few weeks back. She stole the best outfit award looking so nice tonight. Nickki also had a few games prepared for us to play, the first game was a Las Vegas word scramble. She picked out about 10 or 12 words that people would associate with Vegas and had us all try to unscramble them, with the goal of course being the first one to complete wins a prize. Since I have been doing so many word puzzles in the past two years I blasted that game by solving all of the words first! I have to say that she did a very good job at scrambling the words and being inventive with the ones she chose. The next game we all played was “How well do you know Anne?” There were questions the girls had to answer about my favorite food, drink, animal, sport, color, season. Then a few questions that were more factual such as my first car, where i was born and how many times i have moved. Debra won that game with only missing two questions, which we all agreed could have been the correct answers. She guessed that my favorite food was BBQ sauce (i had written down chocolate pudding) and she said that I had moved 4 times and i think that we all decided that i had only moved three times. It's sort of funny how some people don't really know the little things and some people really pick up on that sort of stuff and remember. Actually I don't recall what we decided on with how many times I had moved.... But the important thing is that Debra got the prize for that game!

Nickki had also prepared little gift bags with little bottles of champagne and a few “Vegas” style things like a poker chip key chain, a money cover note pad, and a few loose poker chips. She also put numbers on the bottoms of each bag for a game to be played later, which was sorta fun as well. Nickki had made up additional prize bags and blew up some balloons with numbers on a little sheet of paper inside of each balloon. Then i got to pop a balloon and who ever had the matching number of the popped balloon to the number on the bottom of their gift bag got to pick another bag of goodies! I don't know where she gets all of these ideas for these parties, she is so creative.

OH! Didn't even mention the FOOD yet... or the decorations! She had prepared a seven layer dip with both tortilla chips and nacho cheese flavored chips to go with. There were little beef tortilla wrapped things that were baked, and for the life of me I can't think of what they are called but they were tasty. Jessica brought a fruit kabob plate with creme fresh e, these delightful little dutch cookies that had a gingery taste and they were sandwiched with a yummy filling, i think it was a cream cheese frosting. She also prepared a veggie plate of carrots, cucumber, pita wedges and hummus for dipping. Nickki baked chocolate cupcakes and had Shirley Temples out with little cherries. Later we broke out the champagne and orange juice. Some of us had mimosas and some just had champagne. It was a wonderful spread of food and i didn't eat that much but i was so full! I brought home a cupcake for Jason and i just might have to steal it from him!

The decorations that Nickki had around the house were so cute too. There were these streamers that she hung in various corners that consisted of the four suits of a deck of cards with money signs mixed in. She had little votive candles around set up in little groups. The dining room table was black and red with napkins, forks and spoons to match all set up in a lovely manner. She also found some balloons that were covered in cards and also had a few black ones in the mix as well. There was a vase of red tulips in the kitchen that were a nice touch too. She did such a nice job on everything, especially the invitations! My goodness, she hadn't sent me one because she had originally wanted it to be a surprise party and just figured that since i was the guest of honor that i would be there. Anyways I had talked to her yesterday and we decided that i would like to have one for my scrapbook or wedding album when i put something together. The invitations were hand made with heavy textured card stock of red and black. Red bigger than the black in blocks with a spade, heart, diamond, and club on the outside. They look very professional and nice. And on the inside it is ivory colored paper with all of the info inviting the person to my bridal shower. It had Nickki's address and contact info for additional questions if needed. I was very impressed by her today and her talents. She had become quite the party planner. She even gave me some scrapbook paper to use if I wanted for thank you notes for the reception. What a gal! Sometimes i get overwhelmed by how much Nickki does for everyone, it's like there is nothing that i could do to repay her or even come close to showing my appreciation for all that she does. She had become an amazing person, I'm very lucky to have her in my life and even luckier to have her as my best friend and have her call me the same.

On top of all the games, food, decorations and family that were there, Nickki, Jessica, Kimberly and my mom all got me gifts! Nickki gave me a visa gift card . Jessica gave me a gift card to Cost Plus World Market. Kim said that she didn't have time to go shopping so she gave me cash. My mom said that she is going to take me shopping for dishes! It's so amazing that i have these people in my life. I guess i don't need friends when i have a family like i have. As long as I have Jason and my family and my heart keeps beating, i will be okay.

Love, Anne

Merry Christmas

2005-12-31T03:14:00.000-08:00

A sweet picture of my Dad and Mollie. They must have had a tough day wrapping gifts or perhaps they were all tuckered out from trying to sneek peeks at gifts and then re-wrapping?? Hmmmm, i think that's the one!

It looks like Winter out there

2005-11-29T01:03:00.000-08:00

And my goodness it it sure does feel like it too! This morning was SO cold, i had to scrape heavy frost off of the windows of my car. But what a great day for the weather to decide to snow for us. Jessica and I met up with Jodell at The Herbfarm this morning to decorate for the holiday season. It's always so much fun to prep up for Christmas. Jessica tackled the tree decorations and putting the tree together (it's a fake one, of course) and I took on the mantle decorations in the salon. Jodell was helping us and giving us tips on the holiday embellishments and it was such a pleasure to work with someone that has a great eye and communicates so well. I have to say that i would love to spend a day as her student and learn tricks of the trade in floral design and just plain 'ol decorating in general. She gave me a few tips on floral design, which i asked for since i absolutly love (and lose too much time sometimes at work...). She said that i have a great eye and a good opinion of color and placement. I certinley will take that as a great compliment from someone who has a background as her. She recently designed a line of umbrellas which will be delivered to her in about 3 weeks. She said that there are seven different colors with an additional three different handles which of course are mixed and matched. Anyways, Jodell is doing well and i had fun with her and Jessica. I actually got to do a little silk floral arrangement that i got critiqued by Jodell, she said that it was great, since i picked what went it there and all she did was come in and do a little "fluffing" and gave me a few pointers. She also asked why i hadn't taken over the floral arranging for the restaurant, she thought that i should have a LONG time ago. Anyways, i again had a good time this morning with the girls. I made coffee in the big pumper pot and we went through two of em! Carolyn and Misty were also there this morning doing the monthly inventory for the pantry, which i got out of because i was helping with the fun stuff, good trade off? YES, i got lucky this month, and last month because i was off eloping... :)

Now about that weather again! As of this moment it is mixed rain and snow at my house here in North Seattle. It was plain old raining for quite a while when the storm system started through, but i don't think we will get anything that amounts to much out this way, we are just too low. When i was leaving this evening to go to dinner it felt pretty warm out there. Too warm to snow, but it smelled of snow. And when i left The Jones there were a few little flakes that were falling and melting as soon as they hit my windshield. I always get so excited when there is a possibility of snow in the city. There is just something about snow that is so pure and serene. I love when it has snowed and you go outside to walk around and it is so quiet and the sound of steps in the freshly fallen snow is so wonderful. Another great thing about the snow coming to Western Washington tonight and tomorrow is that i don't have to try to be anywhere! That is the best when you know that you don't have to brave the roads with all of the other people out there. Especially when you live in an area that is very hilly. Even if we don't get any measurable snow here in the city, it's fun to watch the news and see the kids out there sledding and all of the pictures of the area covered.
Joe, Jessica and Sally all reported snow at their homes on Sunday morning. They live in the Monroe and Mill Creek areas. I learned that they are part of the convergence zone in Puget Sound and usually get snow when the rest of us see nothing, i think they also get more rain when the rest of us just get clouds. Lucky ducks, they have already gotten snow!!
On my sad note of the weather, i believe that it has thrown me into another arthritis flare. For the past two or three days i have been very worn out and yesterday i noticed twards the end of my work day that my hand started turning red and was getting a little swollen. This morning it was worse, and the redness was still there. Pain is getting worse and i'm affraid that it could be the return of an infection. It hurts to use my right hand for pretty much anything. I could feel it throbbing when i was trying to nap after i got home from work today. The pain killers aren't really doing anything. I think i have to put a call into Dr G tomorrow and see what she says. The oxy's are hardly touching the pain, it mildly dulls it, but does nothing of the sort of taking it away. The thought of that scares me. I was driving into work this morning and listening to a morning radio show and they were saying something about how something was as fun as taking vicodin and hot cocoa, I nearly laughed out loud because vicodin does nothing to me anymore. I think i would have to take 6 for them to make me feel any effect. Tonight i took my usual one oxycotin that i take (one in the AM, one in the PM is the schedule they have me on) and two percoset and didn't touch the pain and i wasn't all loopy as most people would be. Most people it would knock em out, but nope, not me, I just sit here and type away about decorating for the holidays and the potential for snow. It really scares me on the tolerance that i have gained over the past 23 months. And when i saw Jason tonight for dinner and showed him my hand, he said "it's christmas time, that means it's time for another surgery" Past two christmas days i have had painful times that led to trips to the emergency room and eventually to surgery. I don't know what they could possibly do this time. I'm thinking that when i get blood work done and if it shows infection that they will just put me back on the zyvox. Nothing too major, but i don't like being on these antibiotics all of the time. That thought scares me more than the pain killers... almost...
I have been doing so well with the tapering too! This sucks. I'm all the way down to 13 mg. I had to take an additional 5 mg today to try to stop the swelling in the hand, but i feel like my attitude is getting better from finally getting off the high dose. I was even doing a trial taper of the zoloft, but i don't think that this is the time now since the flare is in action. I found myself being on edge this past week. I thought that it was just because i was mad that the restaurant was open for Thanksgiving, but started to realize that even when i wasn't thinking about that, i was still grumpy. So i decided that i will keep the same dose of zoloft until my prednisone level is stable and i have gone down as far as i think i can go. That will probably be next summer. We'll see. I just don't want to be sad or grumpy this holiday season. There are so many good things going on right now and i really need to enjoy them. Jason and I just got married, Andy is getting married in February. Sarah is coming to visit soon with her family. Nickki and i are hanging out more. I WILL get a raise at work and i still do enjoy my job for the most part. J and I get to have a party to celebrate our marriage!! Just too many wonderful things are going on that i hate being so tired all of the time. I don't want to be the person that just can do one thing a day and then go to sleep. And that's all it has been for the past 6 weeks it seems. I get so exhasted from work that all i want to do is crawl into bed and lay there. I have gotten so far behind in my ironing for work that it's wearing me out just thinking about starting that project. I've been just able to keep up with the lace doily ironing, havent had the energy to tackle the table cloths.... Damn that's what i should be doing right now, especially since this week at work is so busy and weird. We are going to be serving 5 days in a row. We have a lunch on the 30th, 2 small groups for dinner on Thursday and regular service for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I stayed at work for about 2 extra hours tried to get a head start on all of the folding. The shipment of linen that i got in this week was wonderful and just the right amount of starch so folding has been a breeze this week. I'm such a dork when it comes to my work, i get excited about the smallest things. The small things are really the things that matter right?? I think so. I have been trying so hard lately to do my very very best a work. I made a updated my prep sheet for work about, oh goodness, 6 weeks ago, maybe 2 months ago, and it's very detailed and it covers all of the tasks that i do that i would do on a VERY thourough day, but it's everyday thing now. I was wondering and not realizing why it was taking me so long to do set-up a few days back. Then i realized that it's because i am doing all of these little things that make the restaurant tighter and tidy. And the dining room has been looking so good. The new chargers are not chipping like the last ones and that makes SUCH a HUGE difference. The goblets that we FINALLY got in make things sparkle again and Carolyn does a wonderful job on polishing the stemware and flatware. I have to say that we are a good team. An eye for detail and caring about what you do really comes through when you put in the effort. I've been having so much fun in my own little world setting up, i just need to stop stessing myself out about things at work that are out of my control and just relax. When i learn how to do that.... Wait, i don't know if that is a possiblity, but i can try!

Alright, enough for tonight. I did my ranting and raving about work, depressed myself all over again for my one day off this week. Talked about the weather and how i love weather. Discussed the wonderful things that are going on in my family. And revisited days with Jodell and decor and floral arranging. Good night and have sparkling snowy dreams.

Love Anne Jones

The "Wedding" day, November 1st

2005-11-19T23:22:00.000-08:00

The day we got married, November 1st, 2005 Clark County, Las Vegas Nevada

After we got back to the room from the show and relaxed a little, i discovered how tired i was from all of the travel and exciting Ween show that we had just been too, not to mention all of the walking on the strip that we had done. I was well on my way to dream land, and Jason needed to satisfy his gambling hunger, so i took my medicines and promptly fell asleep as Jason went back to the Hard Rock to play paigow poker for a few hours. J tells me this is a kind of poker that you can ante in for not a whole lot and play for a long time, you also push a lot, which actually means.... okay, i'm not even going to claim to know what kind of poker this is because i have no clue and have never seen it played, but he likes it and played for quite some time and had the drinks keep coming for free for those few hours that he was back at the Hard Rock Casino. I fell asleep until about 3 or 3:30 and decided that some crosswords needed to be solved and I also had to catch up on the news so i flipped on ESPN and was content. Knowing that Jason was having his last night of "freedom" I wasn't concerned that he wasn't back yet. It really wasn't long before he came back in all happy with his piagow stories from across the street. He was wondering what i was doing awake though, since i was so sleepy when he left and now i was awake and doing crosswords and puzzles. Since i take so many naps it seems that i just sleep in shifts and need only a few hours every 8-10 hours to survive and strive. So he came to bed and told me his stories of the game tables and softly difted off to dream land. I did a few puzzles and then followed him happily. I set the alarm for 9:30 so that i could pack all our junk and get some breakfast down stairs.
I woke up before the alarm and got dressed and put on my make up. I had trouble sleeping, it felt like i didn't get good sleep at all. Ya know those nights when you wake up every hour or so, by the time it's "acceptable" to wake up it's almost worse than when you went to sleep. That is the kind of time i had sleeping. Jason was out like a light though, he was a TIRED man.
I thought that the breakfast at the hotel was served until 10 am, so i went down at a little before 9:30 thinking i had plenty of time to spare only to find the staff clearing all of the food when i got there. I found the yogurt and a serving of waffle mix left, so i hurried to get the waffle started.... then i couldn't find the plates, so i asked the lady that was clearing some of the dirty dishes where the plates were and she informed me that they had "closed" at 9:30... But she took pity on me and got me a plate. I also got a glass of milk not seeing that there was coffee available at the other end of the dining room. I waited the 2 minutes 45 seconds it took for my waffle to cook on the waffle irons they provided and seasoned it with the syrup they had in a pump type dispenser. I got another glass of milk and settled down to read the sports section in the sunniest part of the dining room i could find. How often is it that i will be in 75 degree weather in November again? Then i saw the coffee service they provided and helped myself to a cup of that as well. I had a funny feeling that the lady that had given me the plate a few minutes earlier hadn't really wanted me to sit down and have breakfast in the dining room since it was impending her from doing her work, but what was i to do now? So i ate as fast as i thought was healthy and got out of her way. It was nearly 10 am anyways and check out was 11.
I got back upstairs to our room and Jason was still sawing logs as i expected. I did my best to arise him, but he was just too sleepy. I got him to agree to get out of bed and get into the shower if i went to Starbucks and get him a quad carmel latte.
I had a feeling that he would still be in the same exact position as when i left him, when i returned with the coffee... I was correct... Now it being after 10:30 and Jason not wanting any part of the getting out of bed and getting out to show his sweetheart Las Vegas, i was in a precicament in what to do since we had less than a half hour to check out of the hotel. I could hear the maids working their way to our room as the moments ticked by. I tried to bribe him with keeping the coffee across the room to get him out of bed, but that didn't work... So i gave him a little to try to get the caffeine in his blood, and that got him to at least be a little more concious. Then I tried to threaten him by telling him he didn't have time to take a shower if he didn't get out of bed. He didn't like that at all, and there was no way that i was going to keep him from showering on our wedding day. I was even jumping on the bed and turned the air way up to try to force him out of bed. It ended up that he convienced me to call the front desk and ask for a late check out. I called down with a sleepy voice and acted as though we both had just woken up with ten minutes to check out and just had to get our stuff together and then we would be out... They were kind enough to give us until noon to checkout without charging us, i was thankful, but i think Jason was even more thankful so that he could actually have a little nap (without me BUGGING him to death) so get his mind together. At about 11:30 he finally put his feet on the ground and got in the shower. After that we moved at a good pace on getting out of the hotel. We checked out and started walking around outside not really knowing where we wanted to go. Jason was hungry and then we decided that we could go to FatBurger on the strip, and the hotel we stayed at offered a shuttle ever hour at the top of the hour to the Aladdin, so we jetted back to the hotel and caught the shuttle. We got dropped off and started walking, and walking... It turns out we went the wrong direction and so J bagged the Fatburger idea. We sorta wandered around and stopped in a few of the Casinos that I hadn't been to yet and wanted to see. We went into the Billagio and it was pretty inside, but we entered at the shopping part and it was so gaudy that we turned around and left about three minutes after we came in. Shops like Armani, Gucci, Tiffany's, Chanel, etc. were just too much for my blood. It was a very beautiful hotel/casino though, i would like to go back next time and see more than just the shops. We also visited Cesars Palace. Amazing sports book, beautiful shopping center. The mall section has very high ceilings that are painted like the sky on a beautiful summers day with fluffy clouds. The shops they have in there are "whatever" I didn't really find the need to go into any of them, but the entire atmosphere of Ceasers was so cool. My favorite part was at the end of the shopping center where there is a HUGE fish tank. I have no idea how many gallons it is, but it wraps around with benches along the entire thing so you can sit and watch all of the different salt water creatures. There were a few sting rays, sharks, box fish, triggers, clown fish, puffers, fox fish and so many other varities it was just so beautiful and amazing. There was also a video system that transmitted the fish to TV's surrounding the base of the ceiling of the fishes swimming around on a live feed. I was so taken with that fish display, i can't do it justice by the words i type, i will have to see if any of the pictures i took are ok and post those. After we walked around Cesars Palace and saw the sites of that casino we went and finally found some food for Jason in one of the little food courts beyond the gaming tables. He had a bacon burger and i got a beer to try to curb my nerves a little. I had gone to the bathroom when he was ordering and i had asked him to get me a beer, when i got back he thought it was funny that he had to pay for his sparkling water but my beer was free. Las Vegas can be so backwards sometimes. After we finished our lunch we decided that it was time to go get things done, so we headed out of the casino and were going to start our trek to downtown Las Vegas. As we were walking and talking about the fish tank in Ceasers, Jason mentioned that The Mirage also had a big salt water tank and it was very cool with sharks and the whole 9 yards as well. I wanted to see that one so we stopped by that casino as well. We saw the white tigers that nearly killed Sigfreed and Roy act a while back... well we saw a couple of exotic kitties, don't know if they are the same ones that were in the preformance or not. Anyways the mirage also has a large display of orchids as well, which i took a little stroll through. A few of the ones they had on display were pretty impressive, but not any that i hadn't seen in books. The fish tank behind the service counter was large, about 20,000 gallons i think they claim, but it wasn't nearly as impressive as the one at C.P. Jason had thought that it was much larger in the past and now it just didn't seem as big, funny how memories change through the years! We left after staying and identifing a few fishes and orchids along our walk.
It was getting pretty warm outside in the desert sun, i think that it was near 80 degrees on the first day of November and we were doing a LOT of walking. Good thing i had drank all of those liquids in the morning to stay hydrated! We kept on walking and Jason kept mentioning that we better go just get the whole married thing over with so that i would stop acting funny, but i think he was the one acting funny. Or maybe it was both of us being slightly nervous about the entire thing. I thought that i was pretty excited at the time, but looking back i suppose that i was a little nervous of what the reaction would be of both of our families. But over everything else i knew that i wanted more than anything to be married to my sweetheart Jason. I wanted him to be as sure, so there was a few times throughout the day that i stopped him and asked him to answer me honestly if it was what he wanted to do. I didn't want him to feel rushed, pressured or anything of a negitive way about marrying me. He said he wanted to marry me still and so we walked on in search of a taxi to take us to the court house. I guess it can be looked on as acting funny if i keep asking if he is sure that he wants to go through with it all of the time... Funny how you can see a day so differently when you step back two steps and see it from anothers eyes.... I thought that i was doing it that day, but i guess i was a little caught up in myself.... Stupid Bride! We walked a little further until we got tired of all the cabs passing us by, so we decided to go to the taxi stand at the Wynn Hotel/Casino. Good choice! We got a cab there within minutes and were finally on our way downtown.
Downtown LV was a lot further than i thought it was. And the feel of it is so different than the strip too! The groups of people that hang on the strip are so much younger than in old vegas. I saw so many seniors and families in downtown than compared to the partying people of the strip. Not saying that there weren't any families or seniors on the strip in the casinos, but the amount of younger people in downtown was far less than on the strip.
As we got closer to the court house we kept seeing more and more chapels, a couple drive-thru ones, just like on TV. A few of the classics like the little white chapel that it seems the celebrities do their elopments at, but that place can be a little more pricey than the other smaller places. It was just like going downtown in anyother city when you get close to the court house you usually see bail bond places in abundance, but in Vegas you see wedding chapels. Just something funny that we noticed.
We got dropped off at 3rd and Main and found our way to the court house of clark county. I think we went in the wrong enterance because we had to go through the heavy security where you had to take off your belt if you were wearing one, the two guys behind me, but in front of Jason, were wearing belts and their pants were so baggy that they literally had to scruntch their pants as they walked so they wouldn't fall around their ankles! I thought that it was funny. Jason always has lots of stuff in his pockets and wears a belt so it took him longer to go through the metal detector than it did for me. In my waiting time i asked one of the people at the help desk where we go for the marriage licenses since i didn't see it as one of the options in the direct area we were in. The way she answered was so funny, she said to me "If that is sure what you want and you still want to get a marriage license go to the end of this building, go out the door and take the first door to the left" She said like she had seen so many other couples come through the same door and ask the same question. Being in her position i would probably do the same thing. So many people get married in Las Vegas and have to do the same thing that we did i think that i may throw that little extra flag out there as well. Once Jason got his belt back on and all of his stuff back in his pockets we headed down the hall to that first door on the left.
We went in and found that we both needed to fill out a form about ourselves and our parents. Each bride and groom needed to fill out the form and had to have the information of where we were born, where and when our parents were born and where we lived currently. You would think that this kind of form would be filled out in ink.... not so, they provided pencils, but not just any pencils, GOLF PENCILS! I thought that was weird, no erasers on these small pencils. Oh well, just another detail i remember that doesn't make any difference... We filled out our forms and waited to be called upon from the next available clerk. The room remided me of a steiral bank office or building. There was plexi glass in front of the clerks and they spoke into these little mircophones that cut out twice during each word. The lady that helped us was very sweet and happy. She would have been a great kindergarden or first grade teacher i think, just had that demenor that seemed to me that she would read stories so soothing that it would make me sleepy and happy. Our "transaction" with her was very pleasent and quick. There wern't many people in the place applying marriage licenses which they said was rare, which was a good thing for us. We got our license and i asked her where we could get married, if there was a place in the court house and she directed us to the Marriage Commisioners Office across the street and told us that it was $50 exact change or to go to any of the chapels and present them with the three peices of paper she gave us (can't tell ya what they were cause i was just caught up with everything at the moment). We didn't need a big production, hell we were already eloping! So the Marriage Commisioner was the place for us! After a little work we found it but then discovered that we didn't have the exact change.... So then we went in search of a place to break a $100 bill. We stopped into a little deli and grabbed a soda, but they couldn't break the large bill.... so off we went to find another place. At this point i must have been much more nervous than i led on to believe because i sorta broke down and freaked out a little.... I cried thinking maybe it was a sign or something that there were hurdles that we had to go through, or something was trying to keep us from getting married today... But Jason made me feel better and we went to a casino to break the 100. Then off we went again. We arrived to the place to find out that.... well.... you must have a WITNESS.... oppsie, we didn't bring one of those with us..... So we asked what were we to do and the M.C. told us that we had three options. number 1 was to wait until the security guard came back from his break. Number 2 was to find a witness of our own, or number 3 was to wait until 5 pm until they provide a witness daily. We took option one and took a seat in the lobby waiting for the security guard to get back. As we sat there and watched the people walk by on the street all i could think is that there were so many witnesses walking us by! Why couldn't they just stop by and ask if they could help us out? After MAYBE 5 minutes the security guard walked in the door and checked in with his office and soon came and got us and informed us that he was infact our witness if we still wanted to get married.
We both got up and proceeded to the little office that was two rooms basically. In the front office was the desk with the computer that types out the official marriage licences, and there were other classic office type things in there, lots of filing cabinets and such. The second room was more of a private office looking room. There was a desk that the Commisioner stood behind as she led us through our vows. Also in the room was a few decorations to make it seem a little "festive" I suppose. There were these little white pillars with fake ivy in two of the corners, and on the desk was a little ring bering pillow (for those people that thought ahead and actually had rings when they exchanged vows.) I think that there were some sort of official papers hung on the wall too, but i can't remember too clearly. After we handed her our papers that we got from the court house across the street she told us to wait in the "Ceremony Room" So we sat down in a row of chairs along one of the walls and waited. It was a little strange knowing that i would be getting married in a little room with a security guard as our witness, but it didn't really matter to me, i just wanted to marry Jason. When she came in to marry us, she asked us to stand before her and state our names, then asked us if we were going to be exchanging rings, but we wern't. So she then asked us to turn and face one another and take eachothers hand. I was a little more nervous now, and i knew i was gonna cry and i just didn't want to do that.... but i couldn't help it. She started with Jason first asking if he takes me as his lawfully wedded wife, he said yes, she then asked all of the classical vows about rich and poor, sickness and health, blah blah. When Jason was repeating it to me and looking in my eyes is when i broke down and tears started flowing. I didn't let it get out of hand but there was a stream of tears coming down, it was very emotional for me to have him vow all of these things to me. And FOR REAL, i think he actually likes me! Once he was done with his vows it was my turn. She asked me if i took Jason to be my lawfully wedded husband and i said "absolutly" Jason let out a little laugh, i think cause i said it so confidently, but i know what i want and i wanted to marry this man. Then off she went with my vows to Jason. After i got through repeating all of them she pronounced us Husband and Wife and asked Jason to kiss his bride. She handed us the official Marriage License and asked us to make sure it was all correct and wished us the best of luck and many happy years together. She was nice, she had a comforting look to her as well. To me she looked so much like the pastor that Grandma and Grandpa Zimmerman saw and was at their services. I don't remember what her name was, but i could have sworn that they were related at least if not the same person. I'll have to look on our Marriage License to see what her name was. Anyway, after we were married, we put the papers in the backpack and headed back out to the Las Vegas evening to spend our last few hours of the wonderful ween/wedding weekend having fun. I think we both felt a little dazed about what happened, cause we were both quiet for a few minutes, tried to have a normal conversation, then went into talking about when we were going to tell people and why and all the little details. I knew that i wouldn't be able to talk too much or too long with my family or i would let it slip somehow, i just can't keep a secret. We decided that we wern't to tell anyone that we had just gotten married until February 2006 when we were back down in Vegas for Superbowl weekend. The Jones side of the family would be there and we could say that we were going to get married then and then suprise them that way. That is what we agreed on. Oh and i would have told my family that we were going to get married down there and invite them if they wanted to be there as well. We walked and talked about how hard it was going to be for my blabber mouth to keep this one a secret, but i thought it was going to be fun to have my own huge secret. He agreed to let me tell Nickki though, i had to be able to tell my bestest friend.
We wound up on Fremont Street, which is old Las Vegas. They closed down the street and have nightly laser shows i think, and nighttime displays of different things. Anyway, we wanted a place that had video poker at a bar so that i could do my little bit of gambling and Jason could keep an eye on ESPN and have a beer or two and maybe play a little video poker too. I really enjoy playing video poker, i don't think that i have ever come away with any money, but it certinly is entertaining, plus they give you drinks as you play. I knocked back 4 strawberry daquris while i lost my 35 dollars. Jason played along side me and every few minutes he would say "we just got married" " how weird is that" I would agree and then say "we just got married, in Las Vegas". Jason even told the bartender in the same astonished voice that we had just tied the knot. I was thinking later that he probably gets that a lot with the court house so near by. It was getting near the time to get to the airport and i wanted a little something to commemorate our little getaway so i told Jason that i was going to go roam around the gift shop a few doors down for some goodies. I found a little shop and got a new magnet for the collection at work (a 100 dollar black vegas chip) i got a pretty little bracelet for me as well as a 4 leaf clover key chain, and i got Jason a cool lighter, it's in the shape of two $25 chips, and you twist one of the chips to lite it, it is pretty cool. Now i was officially ready to go home, now a married woman with little souvineers (plus a HUSBAND). We crossed the street and caught a cab to the airport, the cabby complained that we were going to the airport at the middle of rush hour, i think it was about 5:30 but he decided to take our fare anyway. Jason fell asleep fairly quickly in the ride and left me to try to make conversation with this man who was telling me about how he was counting his day until he left Las Vegas because it was so corrupt with mobsters and the entire city is run by the mob. I didn't know how to respond to a lot of it, but we finally got to the airport around 6. We paid the cab driver and gave him a nice tip for baring rush hour for us. We checked in at the SW Airlines kiosk for ticketless and checkless passengers. It took about a minute and a half before we were off to our gate and looking for a place to get a little food and kill time before boarding. We ate at a little mexican place inside the concorse. The food came out so fast it was almost unbelieveable. We got simple foods, but it was litterally about 4 minutes from the time we ordered to the time it was on our table. I got chicken nachos and Jason got a wrap of somesort that was delisious. We started talking about all of the advatages and disadvantages of being married were throughout our dinner. Jason appoligized to me for getting the short end of the stick, but i disagree, he got a broken bride, i got a wonderfully talented man who loves me and is so sweetly nice! He got the short end in my opinion. We ate and ate and talked and half way watched the first NBA game of the season that was broadcast on the TV in the little restaurant. We then moseied on down to our gate and waited to board the plane. The only picture i got of us together the entire weekend was a BEGGED camera phone shot of the two of us at the airport leaving Las Vegas. The batteries on my camera were dying quickly at Ceasers Palace. anyways the flight home was very fast, we arrived in Seattle 20 minutes early, we both slept a majority of the flight. We went and picked up our car from AJAX and drove home to a house with sleeping roommates. It was a few days before they found out that we had gotten married... The sunday after we got married Jason had me call his mom and tell her and we had dinner with my mom and dad, plus thomas and colin on monday evening to tell them the news. Turns out that we both couldn't wait to tell people. Now just about everyone knows and it's only the 19th of November. I have a beautiful band that we went and picked out on the 8th or 9th of Nov. Jason is wearing a silver ring that we bought at the mall to see if he can actually stand to wear a wedding band before we spend some actual cash on a more precious metal for him. He's also thinking of getting a ring tattooed on his finger instead of actually having a ring ring. I also went to the bank and got my accounts changed to my new name and along with the DOL. It's official, I'm now Mrs. Anne Elizabeth Jones

Got Married In Vegas Baby!

2005-11-15T02:01:00.000-08:00

Married in Vegas.

Here is what i wrote on myspace.com. I had written the entire day of November 1st out tonight only to have it not post and disappear... So I'm very irritated at the moment. I will repost on here... when I'm in a better mood. I can't believe that happened. Oh well, life goes on and i still have the story in my head... It just took so LONG to write cause it was such a fun day!
But here is the start of our trip and how it came to be. I hope you enjoy reading it. I had to write it down so that in a few years i can remember all of the little details that i know my brain can't hold. Read on!

Jason and I had wanted to go see his favorite band Ween down in Las Vegas for Halloween ever since we found out they were playing on Halloween. Knowing it was just going to be a drop kick ass good show, we tried to get tickets weeks in advance and set up a little mini vacation. But.... the show had sold nearly immediatly when they were offered a while back. So we were bummed about that and the trip idea sort of died. So instead of going to the show in vegas on halloween, we bought a bunch of Ween stuff from their web site. Jason and I got hoodies that have the little ween dude. They are both black and with Jason being a weirdo and insisting that we never match, i said that i would be the one that wouldn't wear the hoodie if we were together. He also got a few t-shirts, a zippo, a pint glass, and i think something else but i can't remember at this time, please forgive me.Anyways back to the story. As the weeks past and we are still loving weens latest release Quebec in the car and at our work enviroments, we still dream of how cool it would be to see the weirdos on Halloween in VEGAS! Jason has mentioned this to one of the bartenders at the jones and finds out that Malcom is actually going to go to the show, turns out that Malcom has a buddy that lives in vegas and bought 15 tickets! Now we were just being taunted by knowing that Malcom is going to be there and we have to stay home and pass out candy to greedy teenagers and cute little kids on Halloween. So the night of the 30th happens to be Jasons pool night at Pipers Creek Pub, so he is out late. When he comes home i'm messing around on bebo or something. Jason has been thinking about going to the show and how cool it still would be to go. So we go to the ween site and start listening to songs that we haven't heard in a while. Then i decided to see if ticketmaster has released any more passes (day of tickets) I tried and guess what?! I could get buy tickets to the general admission standing only area. The best place to be anyway! So we starting talking about ACTUALLY getting on a plane and going to see the show. After about ten (felt like about 2 hours) we decided that we could make it a fun Halloween weekend.
Jason dared me to click the botton to buy the plane tickets. bad idea if you were just joking about the whole trip.
Anne clicked and bought the plane tickets. Then anne went back and bought the recently released Ween tickets. We were ready to go now, i printed out the confirmations for the show and the ride down there and hopped in the show to get ready to be at the airport in a mere 3 hours from when we first started listening to Ween for good times.
Off we went! We packed a backpack with a change of clothes and a few travel necessities and popped in the car to get to the airport. Dropped the car off at one of those shuttle places, pre-paid for the parking and went to the airport. I hadn't been to the airport since they opened the Pacific Market part, it's really nice! It didn't look like the seattle airport at all!! We went and had breakfast at Anthony's and had a coffee before getting onto the plane. I had to call Carolyn from the airport because when we booked the flight, i forgot that i was supposed to do inventory on the 1st with her, i called and told her to leave me a page or two to count, but she informed me that we are going to start a new inventory where everyother month we just count the glasses and it happened to be the perfect opportunity to start that! Sweet, now anne and jason are free to enjoy eachother on the halloween adventour they were about to embark upon.
The flight was pretty short, i was a smarty and booked both flights non-stop. we got to vegas at about 1 in the after noon and grabbed the backback and headed tward the taxi stand outside. Once we got to the signs directing us, i was blown away on how many people needed taxis and the line for them was crazy! Organized, but insane on how many people were using the tazi stand. Anyway, it took a while for us to finally get to the front of the line and get moving. The cab driver informed us that there was some huge convention of car lovers in town the next day and vegas was going to be very full. He asked where were staying and we said we HOPED to stay somewhere cheaper near the HardRock. Luckily for us we only needed the hotel for one night, but they were charging nearly double what they usually would because the demand for rooms was so incredibly high. But it was a nice room, it was pretty close (about 2 blocks) to a 24 hour starbucks and a cold stone creamery.
Once we checked in Jason took to the bed for the sleep that surpassed him with the ween listening, ticket buying, and traveling. Since i had slept a good 14 hours the night before and was now in Vegas for the second time, i was ready to walk around and be a visitor!! So i took off and left my honey to rest while i got a little las vegas sunshine. I walked over to the Hard Rock and looked around a bit. It's a pretty small casino, unless i missed a part of it somewhere, maybe there were more levels? anyways i scoped out where we needed to go for the show that evening and where the will call was so we could actually get our tickets. After that i wanted coffee, so i walked across the street to the little strip mall and got a big iced mocha then walked over the the cold stone creamery and got a waffle cone with coffee ice cream and cookie dough bits in it, it hit the spot! i LOVE ice cream, and it's so much more special when it's in a waffle cone, can someone explain to me why that is?
After i savored my treat i went back to the room to wake my sweetheart from his slumber. He woke up slowly and then we decided that we should go get the tickets from ticketmaster will call and scope out the bar there for a Malcom sighting, we didn't see Malcom but we did now in fact have two ween tickets in hand for the show that evening, the show that we were drooling over since we found out it was on. Very good feeling, that was.
Next we decided to go to the strip. It looks so close! It looks like maybe 1/2 mile tops............ It took us nearly an hour to walk there.... Damn hotels on the strip are so big it makes them look like they are just right there. So we got our exercise in for that day. We stopped in a couple of casinos, but did no gambling, just a walk through to see what it was all about. We continued down the strip walking with the other tourist. I was taking pictures of the things that you usually take shots of in Las Vegas. I actually haven't seen them yet, so i hope they aren't all blurry as i had the flash off to get the night pictures of the hotels... we'll see soon i suppose.
Next we got a cab back to the hard rock so we were close enough to grab a bit to eat and relax a little before the show. We got pizza from Joe's New York Pizza. Jason also went to the convience store and got beers for us so that we could start the party a little early and just buy a few drinks at the bar in the Joint. Good thinkin Honey! Pizza was delious and so was my shmirnof ice. Over our lovely dinner of pizza and malt beverages we talked about the impeding marriage between the two of us. His main concern was that none of our family members were there and he thought that make some people mad. But personally i think the ceromony is very personal, when i'm saying my vows i don't need everyone around staring at me when i feel that it's a very private moment between the two of us. I reminded him that the ceromony is for us to make our vows and pleadge our love for one another in front of the person who signs the paper and makes it legal. The party afterwards is where everyone should be to celebrate with us and be happy that we didn't make them sit through a boring ass ceromony.

(( I must stop here because i am falling asleep and have to wake up in the morning fresh for work, i will finish the story on Friday the 11th.)) sorry for the break in action.

got married in Vegas on Nov. 1st 2005, PART 2

So i think where i left off is where we had gone to the strip and walked and walked and taken some night-time pictures of tourist type vegas at night. We also got pizza from the little place from across the street from the hotel and got a drink and were discussing the impending "wedding" the next day. Once i convienced Jason that the ceromony was okay to have with just the two of us, he was excited and we decided that we would go downtown before we took off for Seattle the next evening. It was so exciting to know that the next day i would be forever together with the man that makes me laugh and smile and feel like everything will work out as long as we both are still breathing and are together. If Jason has taught me anything it is that no matter how bad things seem to get, it can get worse and it really isn't that bad if you are still breathing and your heart is beating, it WILL always get better. And since i found him life has just been getting better and better. I have made it through surgeries and a whole lotta pain in the past two years and he has been there holding my hand and helping me remember that it is getting better. He helped me survive and keep a good attitude most days. If i mean half as much to him as he means to me I am a lucky lucky girl.
So now we go off to the Ween show across the show. The doors opened at 8 and with no opening act the show started at 9. I think it must have been a 21 and over show because there was a bar in The Joint and come to think of it I didn't see anyone that even looked too young to be in the bar area. I hadn't really drank that much in a very long time, so i thought that i should stick to beer instead of cocktails so that i could enjoy the show. I drank bud lights for the rest of the evening and Jason had Buds. It seems like in Vegas that no matter how much you drink your buzz takes so much longer to arrive, like it's having a good time somewhere else and has to find you! Needless to say i had three beers and usually would be three sheets to the wind, but i was not really even feeling the alcohol, but i was too full to drink anymore! The show finally started and we all started rockin out to Ween dressed up as peas and carrots. There were some pretty cool costumes there (it being halloween and all) Some of the ones that stood out to me were Rainbow Bright, A Keg, a Bumblebee, a ladybug, a plethra of nurses and doctors (weird how many of these costumes there were), there was also a couple that dressed up as people floating and waiting to get rescued from hurricane katrina- they had little signs on their backs that said something to the matter of asking for FEMA help.
Ween is a very high energy, lyricly genious band. I know two of their cd's very well, but i'm not the die hard fan that knows every song like Jason. But they are a band that no matter if you know the song or not, they are very enjoyable to watch and jam out to. They played my song, or at least the one that Jason calls my song, Zoloft! It was so cool to hear that one live! My favorite song in the universe at the moment wasn't preformed, Transdermal Celebration. TC has an amazing video if anyone cares to watch it, i think you go to chocodog.com or just do a google search for transdermal celebration video. It is a animated video and i swear it throws you into all of the human emotions, i just smile thinking of it.
The show was very cool, seeing Ween on Halloween in Las Vegas was just a one of a kind experience that i'm so glad that we decided to go. Silly band in costumes and just being in Las Vegas was amazing. It was so hot in there though, soo soo hot. I had to leave at one point to cool down cause i didn't want to pass out like one chick that i saw being carried out in the first half of the show. The first time i left to go to the bathroom and tried to get back into the show they wern't going to let me back in because THEY took the wrong part of the ticket. Luckily they let me back in and the next time i had to go outside The Joint i talked to the dudes at the door, they double stamped my arm and i was a-ok.
After the show we walked around The Hard Rock trying to find Malcom, but there were so many people and they just seemed to be walking around with no direction. We didn't find Malcom in any of the bars and decided that they probably didn't stick around the Hard Rock too long if there was a large group of them.

---- Here is where i was falling asleep again and had to stop for the night, now here is the rest of the story and the completion of our getaway!

Damn myspace.com! I had spent over 2 and a half hours typing out the entire day of the first of November and the post never posted, and so now it is lost. I'm so irritated by that damn site i don't think i will ever post there again. IT SUCKS ASSES, not just normal asses either, it sucks POOPY ASSES! MYSPACE.COM SUCKS POOPY HEMROIDAL ASSES!!!

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies everywhere!

2005-10-11T01:06:00.000-07:00

I think that I'm getting back to who i used to be again! It's only been 22 months. I made two batches of cookies tonight. Of course it wasn't issue free, life never is, but the wonderful thing is that i'm getting to do the things that make me happy again. I was watching baseball playoffs and getting nervous because it was a close game and it was also a deciding game 5. So if anyone knows me when i'm watching sports and it's a close game with something on the line, i need to keep myself busy either with baking or cleaning. Tonight it happened to be baking cookies! I've been wanting to make snickerdoodles for awhile now, so i made a batch of those. And one of Jason's co-workers birthday was last week and no one made him a cake or really do anything to celebrate his birthday (he didn't tell anyone that it was his day...) So today when i was dropping Jason off at work i wished him a happy birthday and asked him what was his favorite kind of cookie. He said he likes chocolate chip cookies so i made a batch of those as well. I baked the chocolate chip cookies first and since i'm a little out of practice i didn't catch that the dough didn't have enough flour, so they were a little flat and turned out a little crispy on the edges. So i added more flour to the batter and the next batch was perfect. They look picture perfect. The snickerdoodles turned out pretty well. I've only made one other batch of these kind before so i didn't really have a lot of experience of how the dough is supposed to feel. Although i like to have a more cake like cookie with the snickerdoodle than a crisper one. They look almost like puffball mushrooms they are so pillowy. Anyways it feels good to be baking again. I bought a kitchen aid hand mixer a few weeks back and it is a wonder of a little machine. Not as good as the traditional bowl mixer that Jason had to take to work for pasta making, but for a hand mixer it does me just great. It handled creamed my sugar and butter like a dream.... I'm such a dork. I can't believe that i just wrote a big ol paragraph on cookie baking and a chunk of that paragraph was about how wonderful my new hand mixer is...
I finally got my Thanksgiving pictures downloaded and uploaded on bebo and a few here on my little blog. I took my favorite pictures of Jason from the trip here and a amazing sunset and a great pic of the Lake. It was such a beautiful trip, I'm so glad that i have pictures to remind me. I think that we will be sticking around home this holiday season since Jason most likely won't want to take the time off work. I don't blame the man, when it's got your name on it you want to make sure it's up to your standards. Maybe we will be able to take a trip after the holidays when we see how much we ended up spending on the presents this year. I think that the HF takes the annual spring break in March this year. Brunie has also mentioned a Super Bowl weekend in Vegas for this Winter as well, that is an option maybe. Geez, speaking of all this money spending makes me want to work more so that i can afford it all! Too bad i love the time off.

It's so great waking up on a monday morning and know that I have that day off, the next day and even the following day after!! It's so relaxing to just have that in my mind. I was thinking of work today, but it was a little exciting because i'm thinkng of developing a detailed prep-list for what i do day to day. It would make my job a little easier for anyone that filled in for me. It's not that my job is hard at all, but it just seems like there are so many little things that i do that as a whole make my day full. People look at my little to do list on the prep sheet for the dining room and it doesn't look at all detailed, but if i actually make my own list of what it entails, maybe people can see what goes into keeping the dining room sparkling. I was trying to think of what i do as i walk in the door and as my day flows. There aren't too many days that go by that there isn't something that always needs to be looked after and needs to be on a list so we don't forget to do it. A few weeks ago i got a scrap of paper and started jotting down the little things that i do but aren't on any list, but if i'm taking a day off and i have a fill in, it would be nice to know that it is done. Not that i don't think that my co-workers don't notice these things, but sometimes it seems they can overlook it because someone else always does it. I'm being a dork about my job again, anal i know, but i like my job. I like lists too. I just wish i had word or excel on this computer so that i could work on it at home instead of at work where i don't want to be sitting because i get so sleepy when i sit down there! I had the idea that i could make my little list and have 4 identical lists per page, or basically a week of service on one page so i could save some paper as well. The servers prep-list could be more detailed as well with all of my items off the page. I could add all of my picky nagging things that don't always need to be done, but would be so nice if someone took responsibilty for on some days. These are the things i think about as my day at work goes by, LISTS. I seriously think i must have some sort or some degree of OCD.
Last week was good everyday though. Prep-day was good because i had a new guy as my helper and he seems like a good worker, takes direction well and has been in the industry long enough to know some of the things to look for. So anyways, i got to focus on projects that i've been needing to do. I put bowling alley wax on the coffee cup hutch, which it needed so bad. I don't know why Ron and Carrie don't want a finish put on it or some sort of stain, but they like the natural wood. It gets looking so dry and splinters. It was sanded down over the spring break months ago, which helped so much, but it still looks better when there is polish on it. It turns out that the stuff they had me using before was just soaking into the wood and ruining it, so Bob started having me use the bowling alley wax, which he said will put a protective coating on and a little shine, but won't soak in like the other stuff. I put two coats on this past week and buffed it pretty well and so it looks snazzy now. Another project that i took on (i don't think i will do this again for maybe a year or two) is dusting the chairs. They were getting a little gross, but since i had already polished the founders room table, the coffee hutch, the silverware cabinet and the flower arrangement table, my hands were feeling a little tired. It has effected my right hand all weekend long. I really need to be more careful and know my limits on prep-days. That day was also weird because we had service for 26 people, but it was two parties, one in the founders (14) and 12 people in the main, on one long table. So basically the entire main room needed to be set to some degree for just the twelve people. And since it was my prep-day with a new employee i didn't really have time to do much of the setting by the time the servers that were working that evening arrived. So at 4 when Jessica showed up I had nothing set and Carrie hadn't really let anyone know who was doing what. So i started doing the menu napkins and replacments and let Jess know that i didn't really know what the plan was and I would help out but i was already over the hours that i was schedueld for that day. I helped her set out glasses in the founders room and some little things until they were caught up and Dani was done with the wine work for the week and on for his shift. It just seemed so unorganized... big surprise for that place, huh? That one day slowed the rest of my week down, but overall it was a good week. I had a good attitude and tried to be agreeable with the powers that be. On sunday i think i was a little on edge because i got there so late. Carrie asked me if i had renewed my food handlers permit yet, and no i havn't because the only reason i got one two years ago is because i wanted to get a job at a coffee shop and thought i should have one in hand if i decided to leave my set-up job. But all the stuff with my right wrist/hand happened and never really developed. So i sorta told her that i didn't really need one because i don't work with food, and she reminded me that i package teas and well apparently that counts.... So i said in a very unhappy tone "okay" like a little bitch. And when she was going out to train the pigs she told me that she was going and i could come observe if i wanted to, but she didn't notice that i was rushing trying to get the dining room set before the servers came and i started holding them up by not being done. The little things she doesn't notice sometimes amazes me.... Like hmmm, dining room needs to be set so that the guests have something to enjoy their evenings with. Since she asked me to be her partner in pig care and training it's been something i consider a big commitment, i don't think she thinks it is. I'm not sure what to think of that. I think that if i do agree to this that it would be a pay increase because it means a long term commitment to the company and a commitment to these precious little babies that i'm trying so hard not to get attached to. On Saturday she also asked me to add even more things to my dining room shopping list. Normally wouldn't be a issue and who knows maybe it won't be, but i don't really want to add a costco trip to my job duties. Seems like Costco always gets a LIST of things for lots of people. It's a fucking hastle to go to costco, i'd rather not go, yet she makes it seem like i get to go out for a treat by going for the HF. I guess that if i could get everything that i normally shop for at costco and it would save time overall i would be all for it, but it's for ONE thing. I don't know, i'm just making drama out of nothing really. I like to complain, it makes me feel like i have more of a life or something. I just like to have someone to pick on. I was asking Jason today why i make the money that i make. Is it a difference in pay from the servers because i don't actually interact with each guest personally? He told me that is the reason given for the pay difference between front of the house and back of the house. Servers bitch that they have to "deal" with the customers and they DESERVE more. But it hurts to hear them cry poor and that they have to get a second job because they don't make enough. Well, baby, I make DOLLARS less than you do and somehow i am making it. Barely, but somehow i survive. It is pretty funny that just about all of the people that aren't on salary at the HF have to have some sort of second job to suplement their income. The people that are on salary either don't have the time to have a second job because they are there for 70-80 hours a week already or are work on their days off or just don't sleep much. So here is my argument for wanting more money from the herbfarm, i've worked many YEARS for the herbfarm, i'm a utility player knowing MANY departments of the herbfarm, and damn, I'm just over all good. Does it not matter that i'm family too? Should i take less or expect less because i share the last name with one of the owners? I do a good job, i'm loyal, i'm stable, why? why? why? Why should i accept more responsibilty if i'm still not getting a equal output from the other end? I can only take it for so long before I'm just a dope for taking it? Right? And usually i would be really angry as I talk about this, but honestly right now i'm not. I would just like to know why. Is it something holding me back still? Since my last review i've missed only one day for my wrist hurting and the infection. But I take care of my things the best i can to make it as easy as possible for who ever may be doing my job. What more do they want from me? I find out that people that are just hired are making 5 dollars more than me TO START! they haven't showed her anything but they have a donger, and i really hoped they haven't "showed" her and ron, but gender is still an issue. Damn GLASS CEILING! (hehe, i just used a phrase that i learned in college) So this is the way that i'm seeing it as of right now. I'm being held back from a better income because 1. I'm disabled 2. I'm female 3. I don't "deal" with guests on a personal basis daily 4. I'm family 5. I try to get all of the departments of the company to communicate and work together "be on the same page" 6. I have a bad attitude. These are the things that jump to my mind off hand. I don't know if my supervisor realizes it, but those 6 reasons i just stated are very true. Number one on my list was the reason why i didn't get the raise i deserved 6 months ago. number 2, i seriously think she doesn't realize that she counts this in at all. number 4, why the hell does it matter, i do a great job, above and beyond. They take me for granted! Number 5 just plain pisses her off because it makes the greed card so visible to everyone. Number 6, yes, some days i do have a bad attitude, i'm stubborn and think that i need to fight back, i'm still young and i'm still learning. Maybe if i was compensated well enough i would feel better about adding the additional 6 people at the end of my day when i'm nearly ready to head out the door. But do i see anything as far as a thank you for making changes or a bonus in my paycheck when things get stressful? No, but the servers do, because when they get overworked they need to be babied because the guests can see when the smiles disappear. They don't ever see my smile or frustration. I want these people to have a night they will never forget, i want the guests to tell their friends of what a wonderful place it is to spend an evening and how good the food is. But i also know that they think that all of the employees are well taken care of. I want them to know that when we are at work that it is a great place with a great crew taking care of them that night. We are, but if you want that great crew to stick around, show us that you care as well mr and mrs boss people. There is a reason why people come back, give us a reason to stay.

Annie

2005-10-11T00:44:00.000-07:00

Brunie and Jim hired a photographer to come and get some family shots of the Thanksgiving holiday, and although this isn't a pro picture we were all gussied up (hehe can't you tell?) I had had a few too many drinks the night before playing cards and wasn't my usual perky self. I still couldn't resist a picture with Jason with a backdrop like we had that day. The snow had fallen the day before and was just so pretty. If you notice my jacket, Jason had gotten me with a few snowballs just before the shot was taken, isn't he a sweetheart? :)

2005-10-11T00:41:00.000-07:00

Stunning picture of Lake Tahoe November 2004
I still can't get over how beautiful it is there. It was such a pretty morning when we went up on the Gondola, the view was amazing.

2005-10-11T00:39:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving in Lake Tahoe
This picture doesn't look real, but it is! As the sun began to go down mist formed over the medow against the tree line. It was sooooo soooo pretty. I keep saying that but Tahoe is a lovely place, i can see why the ski resort there is called Heavenly.

2005-10-11T00:37:00.000-07:00

Jason in Tahoe over Thanksgiving 04. The kids were sledding on the slope beside the house we were staying in and Jason thought it was a great idea to peg them with snowballs as they were whizzing by. Silly man.

Saturday Night

2005-10-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

I'm trying my hardest to stay awake until at least 10 tonight so i can actually get a good night of sleep. All week long i have been taking 3 hour naps, then not being sleepy when i need to be sleeping. The rain has been making me pretty fatigued as well. We were busy at work today, and it didn't help that I woke up 15 minutes after i wanted to be at work. I got there at nearly ten this morning to find that the Founders Room wasn't pre-set by the servers the night before. It wasn't a big deal, it just took me back and made the morning feel a little rushed. But some days i swear that is a good thing to get me going. I was in a good mood just about all day today, which is SOOOO nice, and such a good change for all of the people around me. I have to owe my much improved mood to much rest and fewer hours at the office the past couple of weeks. The fewers hours only sucks when payday comes around. I got my paycheck this past prep-day and it was so small! It was the size that it was when i was recovering from surgeries. I guess it's a good thing that next week the powers that be added a day of service. Luckily, i have been too tired to go out and do anything to actually spend these small paychecks, so it is all working out. It has been worth it to just be home and in bed most of these days, i must admit.
I got home for the end of the Chicago vs. Boston game 3 yesterday, and too bad for the Red Sox, they were swept by chicago in the ALDS. After the storied year they had last year it was sort of a whimpy end this year. But they were just plain beat by chicago. Out pitched, hit, and played all around. In the other American League series, the Angels vs. New York, Anaheim leads the Yankees 2 games to 1 with game 4 to be played on Sunday evening at New York. It was postponed due to rain today. In yesterdays game the Angels looked pretty damn good against the Yankees, they were stringing together hits and taking advantage of New Yorks mistakes. If the Angels can close it out on Sunday I will be looking forward to watching Chicago and Anaheim play for the ALCS.
In the National League the Braves and Astros played this evening in Houston and the Astros pulled out that victory to take a 2-1 lead in that series. The Padres and Cardnials are playing as I type. St. Louis has taken an early 5-0 lead early. The Cards are looking to sweep San Diego and wait for the winner of the Houston/Atlanta series. As if you couldn't tell by my telling of the series, i'm more into the American League series a lot more than the NL, but hey i watch AL Ball all the time and I am more familiar with those teams, can ya blame me?

On a sad note I think that the goby in the salt water fish tank is dying. He has been looking pretty skinny lately. I don't think it's from lack of food because ever since i took over feeding the fish i see him eating every other day (that's their feeding schedule). The goby must be pretty old, he is huge compared to any goby that you see in the fish stores. We bought him from Below Sea Level where they had gotten him from a long time customer. And I think we've had him for a year and a half. I didn't see him when i fed them yesterday and not today when i went down to check the water level and see how everything was doing... I gotta call J cause the Xenia didn't look good either and it has been so healthy ever since we moved everything into the small tank with the different lighting. I think the tank needs some good ol' Jason time. Like we all do from time to time.

I cooked! and it actually tastes good! I went shopping at the grocery store earlier this week and wanted to try my hand (finally!) at cooking chicken. So i found the smallest package of chicken breast that i could. Picked out some veggies that sounded tastey, and decided that i could cook it and put it on some rice. So when i get home i discover that i really don't know how to cook all this stuff together. Sure i may be able to cook the veggies individually, and i could grill the chicken if i wanted to, but actually put a dish together? nope... So i wait for J to get home and he writes me out directions on exactly what to do. Of course i talk to him when i'm having one of my drug induced talk athons. The next day i look at the directions and get nervous all over again and put it off. So when Jason gets home from work I'm already asleep. He comes and wakes me up and informs me that i forgot to cook and how much he was looking forward to coming home and eating some of the chicken and rice. After a little talking, and again I'm in a drug induced stuper, we decide that it's a good idea if i go downstairs and cook it then, so that if i have any questions that he'll be there to lend a hand. It's 3 am... I only half remember cooking... But i did it and it actually tastes good. I had a little when we finished cooking last night, and i had some when i got home from work, and it's still good! Jason pretty much finished the cooking, but i cooked the chicken and made the rice and prepped all of the veggies. The directions he made for me had cream to finish the dish, but we didn't have any so he worked his magic and "made" cream. Basically a mixture of butter, a little water and wondra. I don't really know what wondra is or why we have it in our pantry, but i don't care cause i (we) made a yummy dinner. It wouldn't of tasted nearly as good without his touch, but i have a little experience now and maybe a little confidence to go beyond pasta! I would also love to get back into the cookie baking passion. I've been wanting to make snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies. If i have energy in the next few days i'll have to do that.

At work today carrie asked me if i wanted to be her partner in pig care and training. I told her i would think about it. I don't think that i really want to starting this fall because of the weather, and i most likely won't agree to it just for that reason alone. But also i don't know if i still think that we should have them out there. THey are SO cute though. And i would love to have a relationship with them, but i just don't know if i can commit myself to them. I just don't know yet, i should talk with carrie more about it before i say no for sure. I would like to have my review, maybe i should incorperate that into my "goals". Another work note that happened today is about my tea production. Thomas and Ron have been working on new color tea lables for the herbal teas that i package and we put in the retail hutch. Today was the day that Thomas delivered em! I'm going in early tomorrow morning to stick the new lables over the old ones and possibly package up some new teas too. It's going to look so much better than the plain text, black and white lables that we have been using. Ron isn't happy with the sniffle tea lable, so that is the only one that is missing, but i can live with that :)

Looks like i will make it to ten o'clock tonight! I'm going to prepare myself for bed now. St Louis is still leading 5-0 now in the 5th inning, unless the Padres get something going they will be swept this post season.

Sweet Dreams, Annie

Ah! Two days off

2005-10-05T02:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, i usually get two days off a week, but i got lots of rest and didn't even have to take a nap today. Jason has had the last two days off as well which has been nice to see him sleeping in FINALLY!
ok, wait, i have to watch Neopolitan Dynomite..... he's dancing for Pedro.... Man that guy has some MOVES!Love the boots.... hip action! a little moon walking.... spinning, yeah baby yeah! more hips.... ahhh it's over...

Vote for Pedro!

that was fun.... anyways, last week at work was better. I need the shorter service weeks for October, i think that will do me wonders. I have inventory tomorrow afternoon, but that isn't really work, it's just showing up and counting stuff. I should do ironing tomorrow as well, but i think i might just make cookies instead and watch baseball playoffs.

Speaking of baseball playoffs, it was a disappointing day for the teams i'm rooting for. Red Sox lost as well as the Angels. I just hate the yankees. I don't really dislike the white sox but i'd rather see the red sox win than them. We watched the end of the Saint Louis/ San Diego game this morning, but i don't think that series will be much of a series since St Louis is going to slaughter the Padres. The Angels weren't looking too hot today against the yankers, but in the 9th they made alittle run for it getting the tying run up to the dish, but they ending it by hitting into a double play and sending the yankees home field advantage with the road win. The Red Sox were punished by Chicago 14-2. The Chi Sox scores runs in bunches hitting something like 4 home runs just being bastards to Boston pitching. They'll rebound tomorrow and kick a little pale hose ass tomorrow.

JRA update- I've dropped to 16mg of prednisone as of yesterday. I'm feeling a little headache but i'm not sure if that is directly related or not. I am a little sore, but i certinly expect that for the first few days. I know i have to take it a little slower and be good to my bones. I gotta keep warm too. We got out the down comforter a few days back and i have been keeping my little warmers that my mommy got me in good use. We are discovering that the house we live in doesn't have the best insulation. Although, it could be so much worse. At least we can keep warm if we just add a layer or two and keep a little blankey around. I like the hot cocoa and tea as well. J is so funny the past two days, since it's his days off he is insisting on wearing shorts, but he also is wearing his jacket. It looks so funny cause he has his shorts on with white sox pulled up and then he's wearing a jacket that he wore skiing in Tahoe this past Thanksgiving. It's not like it's a huge heavy one, but it's the waterproof shell with a little warmth as well. It just looks cute. And at some points throughout the day he would put up the hood and pull the strings tight... silly man. Anyways it looks like it's soup and sandwich days again!

The started pouring the concrete for our side of the street today! It was actually a little quiet out there, it was nice to not have the tractors and machines going at 7 in the morning. It looks like they should finish pouring tomorrow on our side and then i suppose it has to set and all of that groovy stuff before we can actually park in our driveway again. It's been pretty annoying walking a block to my car every morning, especially when i bring folding or ironing home with me. It could be worse i suppose, i shouldn't complain about a block walk it's good for me. I was reading the little notice that they gave us about the work that they are doing and they won't be completely finished until sometime in December! I was thinking of having a housewarming party in October, but if people can't park close by i may have to put it off even further. Seems as though some of my family may never see my humble abode. In time I suppose. Thinking of all of this family get together stuff, i think that i need to reinstate the get together with family at least once a month for dinner or brunch. I've been looking for a reason to take a sunday off of work at least once a month and i'm thinking that i would love to take the first or last sunday off and have a family brunch or something like that. In the summers it could be BBQ's and in the colder months it could be late breakfast or early dinner. I think i should promote that family tradition back as i did about two years ago. I hope that i would have the energy to do that if i took one sunday off a month and had a meal with my loved ones. It just may keep me sane. I feel like this summer has nearly disconnected me from my family. I've missed birthday parties because i'm afraid that i might fall asleep at the wheel driving out there. I was so tired all summer long i need to recharge and get back to seeing the ones i love. My family makes me happy (most of the time, i like em, they are a good group of people) I think that i'm not too much of a burden anymore since i'm out of their hair most of the time. Of course i still do complain a lot, but that's just my nature most of the time.

I came to a realization this past week when i was talking to Jason half asleep. I'm a whinney little bitch at work. I guess i always kinda knew, but it was confirmed. J was talking about a situation he ran across and how annoying it was, and i started to think about it, well, it's me at work sometimes. And i was telling Joe about it on Sunday about how i came across the realization and how i was determinded to change it, and he said that it was a common thing, he thought, that when you are at a job long enough you get expectations on how your day should go and when i bump comes up that you are more comfortable letting people around you know that you are annoyed by the bump. He said that it was a sign of comfort and that it was expected. But i see his point in a way and i agree in many ways, but i don't want it to become ok. I want to be a good employee. I want to be the best at my job, and to do that it means being coopertive when changes happen. WHen i huff and puff and complain about what i don't like I'm not being the best i can be. I want to be a team player. But i think there are limits to being a Yes Man too, the HF way is to always think of the guests, and when some changes are made i think that it effects the guests' experience. The level of service and quality of their evening can be jepordized if there are too many changes and all of the employees can't keep up with what we are supposed to do to maximize their night. I try to explain that to my boss sometimes, but i don't think it gets through. I understand that there are certain circumstances can be made, but sometimes i also can see the dollar signs get in the way of judgement. When someone comes down and says "it's so hard to turn down 500 bucks" i understand that, but when it's 500 bucks over and over and over, is it worth it to make all of the people coming that night not get the smiles from the staff because there is just too much to do and too few people to do it? There just has to be the line where enough is enough and you must think of all the guests, the staff and the evening as a whole and not the "it's 500 bucks"
At the last meeting we were all reminded to have our "Thursday -aka first day of the service week- attitudes on Sunday, because the guests don't know that it's our last day before the weekend and they deserve our best because it's their night." We got that speech and a day later all i could think is how much that rule needed to be instilled back to the reservation taking when we are full or understaffed for how many people are booked, when they try to add people last minute. It's not fair to the guests that booked weeks in advance to have more people come than we are staffed for. When the quality is compromised because we can't serve them the HF way we simply shouldn't book their reservation.
Maybe it's all just crazy talk on my end, i don't know. It's past 4 in the morning now and i wanted to write something in my little journal here and i was thinking that i didn't really have much to say... silly me, i think i don't have anything to say and that's when it all comes pouring out! I could go on about nothing and everything for ages.
LIKE how HBO is sucking out my life the past few days. We have started watching the series Rome. It's one of the shows that we can get on HBO On Demand, which is cool cause i can catch up from when J was watching last week and i fell asleep. I have all of the episodes a little jumbled, so i need to go back and get them in order so i'm a little more clear on exactly what's happening. I'm not sure i like this whole watching TV shows again. We got sucked into Lost and now Rome. I don't like having to be there on a night and a time so that i can follow the story. I like it all on my time when i want! Now that we are caught up with Lost i have a day and a time that is dedicated to TV and it's so precictable. I like dedicating my tv time to sports, that's real reality tv. I like that. Now that Mariners are done for the season i don't have a nightly family to watch until the sonics start up next month. I have playoffs for a while, but it's not MY boys, it's other cities boys and their excitment. Oh well, i can take naps and not feel guilty about missing the game. I can stay late at work ironing or doing whatever and not feel as guilty when i come home and fall asleep. Basically it's all about the sleeping and sports watching. A little work here and there, but mostly the sleeping. Oh i like eating too. Now i also have to find ways to stay warm. We have a fireplace and i shall buy a duralog tomorrow for the test of it to make sure that our bedroom doesn't get overly hot by having a fire down stairs or whatever the case may be. Also we just want to see what the sucker does to the heat of the house because all we have are electric baseboard heaters and that will get expensive REALLY fast if we turn those things on. I think that we will end up getting space heaters for the bedrooms, and just layer clothes during the waking hours. I may have to find a warmer place for my orchids. Or i may have to create a warming tray for them for the winter. I was reading in my orchid book that i can get a soil warmer strip and create a cute little thing that should keep the roots a good temp and as long as they remain getting good light they should be good. I may also have to get a new plant light for the winter months since we are getting fewer hours of daylight for my precious little babies.
Oh my goodness, i havn't talked about what happened to my newest! There was a party here about two weeks ago maybe ten days ago, anyways a few days after i was checking out my babies and noticed that the one that i keep in the east window that the clay pot that surrounds the little plastic one was broken and positioned in a way that was trying to conceal the fact that in was indeed broken. The terracota pot i don't really care about, those are a dime a dozen, but i think that the incident that broke the pot shocked my little guy because now a few of the blossoms are dying! And they aren't like the normal aging and wilting of the blossoms. They are lower on the flower spike, but they aren't the oldest blossoms which is odd for them to die first. I was reading a post on the orchid group that i'm on and someone else had one of their plants fall when she was vacuuming and was asking if the fall could have stressed the plant enough to drop blossoms prematurely. And sure enough, apparently orchids can be so delicate that i fall can shock them and they can die! I was so sad to read that, and a little upset that my poor plant had been through a trauma. Now i have to baby it even more and try to find a very secure place in the house for it. I'll also need to go to the store and buy a new surrounding pot for it to try to make it feel better. The stresses i have to deal with.... I never knew that being a mother of three orchids would be so stressful. I better get myself a little baggie of m&ms to calm myself while i'm getting the new pot as well. what to do what to do??!! :)

Now that i've been rambling on and on about things that i will probably kick myself for later, i'm going to continue, because basically i'm not ready to go to sleep yet.
To try and solve the algae problem that i've been having in my fish tank i found some window treatment fabric that was my grandmothers that i got last year. I actually found it in my walkin closet when i was looking for the vcr remote last week. Anyways there was also two hook like things that came with the fabric and i got the brillant idea to hang it in the sky light to keep the natural light from getting to the fish tank. I read that a cause for the algae to grow is too much daylight, one of the causes at least. So i hung this maroon sheer fabric on one side of the sky light, which looks sort of odd when you come into the bedroom, but luckily for me the only people that really come up to the bedroom are Jason and I, although when my mom came over she saw it, but she liked it... I don't know where i'm going with this at all, but now i have a sun shield for my tank and i HOPE that it will help with the algae control! They tell me that i should be able to control it with regular water changes and not overfeeding, and since i don't really have the option of moving the tank from where it is because the house is so unlevel, i hope that the sheer maroon window "treatment" will help me with controling the SLIME that has invaded my poor pets home. I already had to throw out all of the plants i had in there because the damn slime choked them to death. I should get some new ones and if they die in a few months, so be it, at least they will have something to decorate the little tank.

Alright, i don't think i have anything else to type about.... even though it is fun to have fingers not hurting like a ..... hurting bunch of fingers....... i just have run out of things to say. I would have said interesting things to say, but that hasn't happened this entire post! Except when i was talking about Jason and his shorts and long jacket. That was funny, i should have taken a picture.

OH! I did my laundry today. I have things to wear that are clean! :)

We had lunch at Greatful Bread today, sandwiches were good, but extreamly overpriced. It was 7 dollars for a whole sandwich and all it came with was a quarter of a pickle, and cheese was an additional .50 I thought it was a good sandwich until Jason told me it was 17 dollars for two sandwiches and a coffee. I don't think that i'll be going back anytime soon for a sandwich, but they do have cafe vita coffee and the pastries are looking kinda tastey. I have a cinnamon roll about 6 weeks ago when Rach gave me a ride to work and we stopped for coffee on the way in. They have large cookies there that loooked good. I wanted a snickerdoodle, but i am determinded to make it myself!

Ok, battery on computer almost gone... goodnight!

Annie

It's been a tough one... again.

2005-09-20T02:46:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I'm doing wrong these days, it must be my attitude because I'm not having the sunny disposition that i usually carry with me. I get so irritated so easily about stuff that I know doesn't matter. It is so frustrating to not know why I'm stressing myself out. I have been tired lately, but my infections don't seem to be coming back, why can't I be happy about that? Other than just working a lot I have a great life and I know that I'm not appreciating it like I should be. It seems like all I want to do is get home so that i can rest or sleep. I'm always seeming to be doing something for prepare for work, either it be rest up so that i can go in the next day, or go on some damn shopping trip for the place, or trying to find clothes to fit my fattening body to look appropriate for the dining room. I think that is what has me so frustrated the past few weeks, trying to shop for pants and realizing that the size that i was a year ago will no longer fit, and the clothes that i was fitting into 6 months ago are snug (to put it gently). And the doctors and nurses tell me that it's the prednisone, and it just does that. But DAMN IT, I HATE IT! I hate feeling hungry and never satisfied and thinking about what i can have next and if it's healthy or not. I hate when people try to get me to eat something and I can't say no even though i KNOW i should stay away from it cause it's usually something like a piece of cake or a donut or candy. I try so hard to be good, but the only thing that seems to keep me truly good is sleeping. I used to sleep my way through my days... Those were not happy days at all for me. I'm just so scared that I won't be able to get off the damn steriods and I'll just keep getting bigger and bigger. People try to be nice and say they don't notice the difference in me, but HELLO, YOU CAN'T GAIN 30 pounds and not see a difference unless you are blind, and last time i checked i don't have many people around me with those white stick thingies. I even bought one of those exercise machines from an infomercial on late night TV thinking that it was something that was would be easy on my joints and would motivate me to get going on toning my body back up, but once I got it I found it to be too hard on my knees and now am thinking of selling it on craigslist.com. I feel like I'm trying so hard and also feel like I'm letting everyone one around me down all of the time. At work because I'm tired and grumpy all the time, and at home because i can't stay awake long enough to pick J up from work, and my family and friends because I'm always too tired to make it down for events and soemtimes even make a phone call because it takes so much energy to interact with people and sometimes I just don't want them to ask how I am because I don't want to have to lie. I've thought about talking to my boss about possibly taking everyother sunday off, some weeks I just can't face 4 service days. The winter is coming which means we usually would be going down to 3 service days a week, however the HF is looking like we are going to have a nice fall/winter season, which is great, i like to be busy, but i don't like to be so busy that i feel like i just don't want to do it anymore, because i still do enjoy what i do, and if i don't say so myself, I think I'm pretty good at it. I like that we have had a busy summer, i just wish that i could ask for help before it comes to the breaking point. Life is a learning process and I'm still so young.
Damn, that was necessary wasn't it?! I didn't know what i had in me... I guess that's why I started this blog in the first place, to VENT my frustrations on what the JRA is doing to me and my little place in this world.
On Bebo.com I've resorted to drawing on the whiteboard feature. It's so much fun, it lets me draw like a kid again. I can sit in front on my laptop for it seems like an hour just doodling stupid little pictures and it makes me happy. I guess it isn't as hard on my hands as regular drawing because i'm just using the click button on the mouse instead of all of the pressure of holding a pen or pencil to draw with. I wish the little white board had a few more features, but it will have to do for now. It seems like with out the little white board i would be going nuts these days. I don't know what's going to happen when baseball ends, I'm going to be LOST!
Speaking of "LOST" Jason and I have started watching the entire first season of the TV show Lost. It's so addictive. The first night we started watching the DVD i got through one before my drugs kicked in and i fell asleep, but J continued to watch the entire first disk, which is the first 4 episodes... And I've been trying to catch up ever since. I finally did today watching a total of 4 just today alone!! I watched 2 a few nights ago. It was so funny today when i had finally caught up with him and he wanted to watch the next one, but i had been watching all morning while he was asleep, and baseball was coming up. So we missed the pre-game so that we could watch the next one together, and then we went and picked up some take-out so we could go home and watch baseball. But during the entire game he was whining that he just wanted to watch "Lost" and not a LOSING BASEBALL team.... I had to shove my computer at him and tell him to search for new ringtones for his razor. Somehow he got distracted on the way to the ringtones and started looking at pictures of Old English Mastiffs, SO CUTE! In a few years once we have a place that we can have a doggy we are going to get a mastiff. I told him that he should get a mastiff and I'll get a weiner dog and we could walk em down the street together and it would be so cute. I also said that the mastiff probably wouldn't be able to sleep on the bed with us cause it just might crush my broken body. we'll have to get a drool proof bed for the thing set up next to our bed. The weiner dog can cuddle with us though, I've decided, i think i forgot to tell Jason that part though.... Oh well, who could ever resist a weiner dog face?

wow, it's 2:30... Time flies when you have stuff on your mind and it won't stop coming out!

Jason has a poker night with his buddies now, so i had a brilliant idea on my way home from dropping him off, i should have my girl night that day! I'm going to see if Mondays work for Nickki to have a hang out day then. Either I could mosey on down south or we could hang out up here in the coolness of Wedgewood!
Jason finally has two days off a week now! Well, this week, one of his line-cooks is going on vacation next week, so he has to cover those shifts, but after that he will have monday AND Tuesday off, which are MY days off too! It's so nice to know that I'm going be able to sleep in on Tuesday and still have the entire afternoon and evening to just lounge with my honey. I have a feeling that we will be watching a lot of "Lost" and setting up the VCR to record the season premire coming up on Wednesday. It will be cool once we are all caught up and have something to look forward to every week, like a normal run of the mill couple! How about that! I'm astonished that I'm getting back into primetime TV again. But I tell ya what, the entire season on DVD is certinly the way to go, there are no commercials, but you can tell where there would have been a break, and it's so great to only have to wait about 3 seconds for the scene to continue. The entire first season of Lost was only 40 bucks, which is entirely worth it since we miss all the damn breaks, AND we can have mini marathons of watching it all day long or night if it comes to that. I was very tempted to watch a few episodes when Jason was at Joe's house playing poker, but i made a personal guarentee that i wouldn't watch anymore without him unless i was catching up due to me falling asleep during a watching period. sooooo here i am typing away and not watching Lost. I even tidied up the bedroom and put away some clothes! I was a good girlfriend today. Damn it, he's buying me a big big coffee tomorrow, maybe even a pumpkin scone if i feel like it too! yep, i think i do!
Gee, i don't know if i have that much more too say, although i do feel a whole lot better now that i have typed my little heart out. I feel bad for anyone who stumbles upon my little rants because they are so negitive, but i feel like if i publish it than i have done more than write it in a notebook and stash it away to go back and just relive it myself. This way I sorta know that i told someone, but i didn't have to deal with the reactions, or the best part for me is not having the guilt of laying all this shit on people i love. I do get it out in someway and I think that has to be healthier than keeping it bottled in my giant head. Maybe I'll go rant about how much i think the Mariners front office sucks and how i think they could improve the team for next year. I spent nearly an hour writng all of this, hope someone out there read it, if not, hey I won't know, but at least my attitude got a little dusting ;)

Love is all around,

Annie

2005-09-13T03:43:00.000-07:00

Orchids are addictive...

2005-09-13T01:56:00.000-07:00

Ode to Danny Wilson and some other stuff too.

Dan Wilson, my paperboy catcher for the Seattle Mariners from 1994-2005 announced that he will retire when the 2005 season ends. Anyone who follows the Mariners knew that it could be a possiblity when he tore a ligament in his knee on May 4th of this year after getting a basehit to left field and had to leave the game. I was working for ANC that game and saw Danny's last at bat and saw him walk off the field. I felt that something was wrong as I watched him walk off with the trainer Rick Griffin. I kind of just stood there with a very worried feeling and didn't want to sit back down. It was like the day before Boonie was traded to Minnesota, i knew that it was his last game in a Mariner uniform. Although today during Wilsons press confrence he said that he would like to play at least one more inning this season before hanging it up. The announcers were talking about who he might catch for, such as long time teammate Jeff Nelson or Jamie Moyer. He gets to make his own ending after the injury, i think that is nice. He is such a good man, not only as a ML baseball player but in the world. He and his wife are so involved in the community and help so many children. He also said that he would like to remain involved with the Mariners in some fashion as well, either it be with the charity work that the team is involved with or down the road maybe a coach of some sort. I really hope that happens. It would be so great to see Dan Wilson a pitching coach and right beside him Edgar Martinez as a batting coach! How about Jay Buhner being a bench coach or an outfield coach? Or maybe Danny could be manager and Jamie Moyer could be the pitching coach when he decides to retire? I like that idea too. There just seem to be some people in this world that it would just be too hard not to remain in contact. (on a side note, when i met Jason I had the same feeling about him, there are just some good people that have to remain a part of your life in some respect). Look at the Mariners since Danny went out with the injury, we have had so many catchers in and out of the position, i think i heard a while back that we have used 6 different guys trying to fill his spot. AND no one will ever have his demeanor, no one can replace what Dan Wilson has, he is just a good man. So, Danny Wilson, I will miss watching your talents on the baseball diamond, but hope that we still see your talents taught to young people all over in this world. Thanks for making the #6 mean something special.

I found a arthritis group on myspace.com and am so happy that i did. I've been reading it for about a week now and it's SO comforting to know that there are young people out there that are stuggling with the same exact things that i am on a daily basis. They actually understand from experience and not just trying to understand by my words. It's so exciting for me to write to people and ask them about the medications that they have been on or are currently on and what worked and side effects. There is a girl that i think is 17 and is on prednisone like I am and experienced something called "moon face" which now i have a term to define my puffy face!! It is a side effect that i knew of, but didn't know it had a cool name. The weight gain is part of it too. But in the past week of reading posts from this group I feel like i have people that i can ask questions to and they can give me an answer that isn't so scientific but is from actual experience! It's a suppot system, but from what I've read so far these people aren't down on what has happened to them, but are there to share their struggles and sucesses with arthritis. I was always a little scared to start reading a group message board for arthritis thinking that it would just bring me down, like there would be constant whining about "why me" but it's not. I've only made a few posts, but everyone seems very welcoming and interested in my story. I have to say that i do have it very good compared to some of the people on there. There are some stories that remind me of when i was very sick and could barely get out of bed some days. One person started a post of 20 things that are difficult to do with RA and so of course other people came up with their own lists of 20, it was fun. I started thinking of how my list has changed over the past few years, I am so grateful! I think i should start thinking of my own list, I don't know if i will post it or not but it could be fun. I got a few good arthritis friendly tips from the list though. It's so great to read peoples ideas on how to beat this disease. It's so helpful to read that I am not alone and never will be, especially because i know that i have an amazing support group around me. I guess that I'm just excited that I fould the group.

On to my vent space, i really should come up with a good name for my venting sessions here, i'll have to start thinkin on that. But my goodness it does make me feel better.
I've been so frustrated with my weight gain from all of the steriods and flare ups that make me sleepy. I'm the heaviest that i have ever been and it really is making me sad. Some days i think that the pain of a flare up would be worth it if i could just fit into my work clothes and not have to wear the same 3 pair of pants every week. Not wear the same few shirts i feel comfortable in, or feel like i might get talked to at work for wearing sleevless shirts because my body chemestry has changed and I get so damn warm when i start working and walking around the dining room. I get so sad when i'm always hungry and know that i should ignore the little voice in my head because it is just the prednisone talking. I have completely lost the ability to recognize when i should stop eating. I just don't ever seem to get full and could sit down and eat a entire meal and 30 minutes later do it again. I've tried drinking water every time i want to eat, but that just endsup making me need to pee every 15 minutes (i've learned that i have a small bladder) and it doesn't curb the hunger at all. I have found that the only thing that stops me thinking of the hunger.... is sleeping.... which luckily since i have been working a lot, I get home most days and fall asleep. And another thing I am so frustrated with is that I have changed my diet so much in the past few months and still nothing! I decided that when i do get hungry that if i eat an apple or pear or some baby carrots that it is better for me that a cheesy tortilla or ramen noodles. I have cut WAY back on my soda and juice intake as well. I have a friend at work that is a personal trainer and i ask her health questions from time to time. I asked about beverages one day and she told me about the healthier options over juice (which i hadn't noticed that there is nearly as much sugar and calories in a glass of juice as there is in a can of soda) and Lauren suggested water of course, but if i want something that i actually like, milk. Even chocolate milk is better than juice. I guess that I'm just trying to be concious of what goes in my body even though it doesn't seem to be doing anything for the continued weight gain. The docs tell me that the magic thing to get the weight off is tapering the prednisone. I have to get through the slow taper process though. One mg every 2 weeks. I'm so tempted to go faster but the last time I did that i had a major flare that made me miss a day of work. I just can't seem to find a good balance. I should sit down and really think about trying to get a work schedule so that i get enough rest and don't feel guilty. I just don't know how to go about it. I really would like to have a review with my boss, and i know i deserve a raise because my last raise sorta pisses me off. And I am totally willing to take on more, as long as i don't feel guilty when i get tired. I don't know how to convey that i get strssed out and sometimes need help. I feel guilty for asking people to help because we are all in the same boat with how busy this summer has been. I was thinking that sunday i should have taken a personal day because everything was just pissing me off. But it just seems like i would be putting so much more stress on my teammates if i did that and asked for help when they already are stretched so thin. I think that i need to have a meeting with my boss and discus these issues that i'm having. I don't know if the dining room meeting is a place to bring it up, but maybe. We will all be there and i could just try maybe. I dunno. I'll give it some more thought. I don't feel like writing anymore, i wanna go play on the white board on bebo.

Annie

Long time no write!

2005-09-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

It has been so long since the last time I have written that it seems like I have to start over almost. Not that so much has happened to me in the past few weeks, just working a lot it seems. But the tragic happenings with the hurricane seem so overwhelming sometimes. It's so hard to put my frustrations down when people have lost everything and actually know the meaning of frustration and pain. Sometimes i just don't know what to do to help, because the need is so great and there are so many places reaching out. I found on one web site that the Humaine Socity was in need of money, and that felt like a place that i would feel very good about giving part of my donation to help. The red cross or the salvation army will also get another part. If there are any other places that you feel that are absolute necessary please let me know, i get paid on wednesday and would like to make a donation very soon to get help to the people and animals in need.
As for my life, as i said, it seems like all i have been doing is working and sleeping. I've been so tired lately. I don't know if it is because work frustrates me sometimes and i just get mentally worn out or if my body is just tired. I have gotten overtime twice in the past month and at least 79 hours the past two pay periods. I haven't worked this much since before all of the surgeries. I am really trying to listen to my body and be nice to it. I wear support on my wrist and try not to do too much at once with my hand. I even had one of my co-workers do some folding for me one sunday. I also have told my boss that i won't be doing the glass polishing because i don't want to reinjure myself and have held steady on that. I'm also finally!! not as moody as i was before from the zyvox. It seemed to be a much stronger moodiness this time around and lasted longer after i got off the antibiotic. I'm almost sure that the stress at work had something to do with that. We have just been so busy at work, I can't remember a day when we weren't busy. Which is good, i like that we are full nearly every night, but it is so tiring. Last week the books were full everyday but sunday, we were really slow in fact, but Ron and Carrie had a wonderful idea to offer a Hurricane Katrina fund raising dinner. For every person that donated 250 dollars to the red cross the herbfarm would treat them to dinner. So of course then everyone wanted the place as full as we could get it. We booked everything but the founders room and had 75 people come to dinner that night. I don't think all 75 were donating to the red cross since some people had reservations before the hurricane happened, but i think it was 15-20 thousand dollars that was raised. I'm curious to talk to my buddies at work tomorrow and see how the evening went.
This coming work week is going to be a busy one as well, but not as crazy busy as the past few weeks. The menu we are running is just a pain in the ass. It's called Rouge Bins and Bottle Booty. Ron and Christine had the idea a few years back to have a theme where they could sorta raid the cellar and get rid of some odds and ends. It was that was for the first two years, but this year it's the same wines they are serving all weekend long. So i say boot the booty menu for next year and same with the red head menu, That one should only be six courses.
Drugs are starting to take effect and my keys feel funny, like they are all wiggly and wobbley
We are going to be having a dining room meeting on the 15th which is next week, wish it was this week! I have a nag list, everyone is going to hate me all over again. Nag nagnagnagnag nag nagn nag ngan naf nag nag nag I:M FRUSTRATRED when I:M FRUSRTATED I'M SO FRustrated when , But i;m grateful I get FrusTrated when .... I get frustrated when... Very uncomfortable.

---((((( ok, a few days after this post I came back and deleted the actual details of my frustrations. Sometimes I think the computer needs to be taken away from me when i get sleepy, no matter how entertaining it may be when i return to see my mind sputtered out online for anyone to fall upon and read. Not that i should be embarassed or anything, but sometimes i believe it can be better to be a little less "out there"))))))) ----

Although, i'm NOT at all frustrated with the new cabbage chargers that we got from Italy this time. They are a better design than the last ones we had. aAnd the absolute best thing about them is, are you ready? They haven't chipped majorly and they have been in heavy service night for two or three weeks!!!!! It makes the entire setting and table look better. they are a softer look and each has a little bit different glaze job. Overall i am very pleased with the look and especaially the way they are holding up during service. Another thing that i'm such a dork about in the dining room is my doilies. We got a new shipment in so that i could start to retire the "faders" I took all of the doilies, in two seperate batche days and tea dyed them at home. The look fantastic now. The first batch was a little paler than i would have liked, but the second batch turned out so beautiful. So now we have new chargers, new doilies that are properly dyed, linens have been pretty good quality for folding, i;m getting lotsa hours which i guess means i won't go bankrupt trying to fill up my gas tank. I almost want to get gas every day becuase if i wait then by the time i need to fill up completely it will be painful..

_-_-_-_- if you havn't noticed, the drugs have knicked in and i'm having an amnesia episode rightnow_-_--_---_---

I don't know if topping off the tank is a good plan or not. I don;t know what to do, it's getting so high. I would like to ask if i can get a cost of living wage increase since everything is getting so exensive. The world is in a mess right now and i don't have the answers, i just have questions. !! Such as; why did the three bears leave the pourage on the table? what were they doing ? and what makes that little bitch think that she can come into their house and make herself comfotable and dip her germ infested spoon into each of their bowls!
stupid girl

2005-08-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

Last week we had a hatching of 11 ducklings! They join the family of 3 adult ducks and Basil and Borage the pot bellied pigs. I took a few pictures on Sunday afternoon of the babies and here they are. Seeing all of the little guys made my day shine on Sunday! I wish i could have had a few more minutes to take some more pictures, but guest were on the tour and it would have been a little awkward to be inside the pen with a camera at that time. Maybe next week I'll get some more pictures. Enjoy!
Posted by Anne

Reflect on the good times

2005-08-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

If this week that I'm having is going to teach me anything, it's that I must reflect and remember how good my life is most everyday. I have to say that it has been a stressful week for me. On Saturday my right hand decided that it wanted to blow up on me again and I couldn't use the poor thing at work all day saturday and couldn't go in at all on Sunday... Which was awful because i called in sick, but Carrie didn't get the message until after 11 in the morning, so she and Sally had to start setting the dining room until Jessica and Dani came in to finish. We had a full dining room on sunday and since i was in pain on saturday i couldn't do any extra folding, actually any folding for that matter. I had to leave early because it was dragging me down and draining everything out of me. So I slept once i got home in the afternoon on saturday and slept all day sunday as well. On Monday I woke up at 8 and called Dr. G to try to make an appointment to get it checked out since she told me to call her if the hand swelled up or got painful again. Unforchantly Mondays are Dr. G's day out of the office. So I called Dr. Barthell and Dawn for their assistance since it is the surgery site that is so painful and swollen. Dawn got me in for a 1:40 appointment that i was so grateful for. Since I've been on a combo of Oxycotin and vicodin for the pain i couldn't drive, so I had Jason drive me down to the valley medical center. Poor guy, he has been working so much at the new place that he's just worn out. Anyways, Monday is also Dr. B's surgery day, and so we got there on time, but Dr. B was busy for about an hour after we arrived, so we had to sit in a exam room for quite some time. Jason had some work to do for the restaurant, looking over order lists and figuring what he needs for the upcoming week. He got that all figured out in our wait time, and I got a little reading done from the magazines in the room. Once Dr. B got to see me, she said it was looking like another infection had found it's way in. Back on the Zyvox again for me, but just for two weeks this time. And once the swelling goes down she will look at the wrist and how I told her there was movement where there isn't supposed to be. That worried her. It looks like I'll have x-rays done soon and if that isn't showing what they need to see then i will need to get a CT scan. I have an appointment on Friday in Covington with Dr. B and Dr. G will be there as well so we can all be on the same page with what is going on. Yesterday was almost too much, i was about to have a breakdown, I was just worn down and tired and I'm so glad that Jason is patient with me, I was grumpy yesterday!
To make things just even more peachy for yesterday, as we were driving home the coolant light came on in the car, which isn't out of the ordinary for my car as i usually add coolant about every other week. Although the light usually comes on and dings and then goes off again. This time it kept on steady... We are so lucky, i can't even believe it, we were getting concerned, but as we got off the freeway the temp gauge started going up, and it shot up very quickly! So we immediatly pulled over and shut off the engine. Our poor car overheated!! Since the engine was hot and there wasn't anything we could really do, we decided to walk to the fish store on Roosevelt and try to waste some time until we could put coolant in the car. We wasted about 45 minutes before we decided that we would just walk home and come back later when the car was cool. I did not want to take the chance of ruining my engine any more than I already have, or risk Jason getting burnt trying to open the overflow bottle to the radiator. So we walked home and watched some TV until we had to go to a company party for Jasons new job down in Ballard. So we took a cab to the car, added fluid and went to the gas station to fill the gas tank. Then we headed to Sunset Bowl in Ballard for a little fun after a weird day. When we were to the ballfields at greenlake the coolant light came back on..... So we turned on the heater full blast and the temp stayed normal. BUT! when we got to Sunset Bowl and got out of the car there was a line of fluid that was coming from my car!!!!!! Something had blown and it was just leaking out! NO GOOD! Luckily for us one of Jasons co-workers roommates that was at the party was kind enough to come out and look and give us a probable diagnosis. He ruled out the radiator, and found that the leak was coming from further back in the car, so either a water pump, or possibly a blown head gasket, which he recommended a new car if the problem ended up being the latter. And another forchanent thing for us was that a Firestone Matience shop was right across the street from the bowling alley. Michelle followed us there and we wrote a note on what had happened and I left the key to have them take a look at my poor broken car. I'm so glad that place was there and I could leave it. Michelle was also kind enough to take us home.
This morning Firestone called with the diagnosis, which i was very sleepy when they called, so i think they said it was a intake manafold thing that needed replacing, and some kind of O ring for the oil something rather. Anyways, all i know is that it's going to cost me my good arm and both my legs to fix. That's what i get for not doing it sooner. I have no reason to whine about what i could have prevented. Like Jason always says, "it's just money" And it is. It was just a stressful day yesterday.
OHH! I almost forgot another fun part of the day yesterday!! As we got out of the dr appointment yesterday, I had to go get labs done and Jason needed to call in the orders, so we decided to meet at the car when we were done. It took a little longer than I thought it would getting my blood drawn because there were some people ahead of me. And so when i got out of the elevator I found Jason leaving the lobby, so we walked to the car and to our lovely surprise, the key was in the ignition! Jason had taken the key off my chain on sunday to drive to work since i wasn't able to go to work.... we had to wait over an hour for the locksmith/tow people to come and unlock the car. What a day, what a stress! To sum it all up in a few words...

Painful
waiting
zyvox
more pain meds
keys locked in the car
car overheating
car LEAKING
bowling, fun part of the day
leave car at shop overnight, wait for the news... :(
go home and SLEEP, FINALLY!
mucho money to fix anne's procrastination
hand is feeling a little better today
had to miss inventory with Carolyn because i have no transportation...

Love anne

Update on the frustration

2005-07-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

Good news, sorta, on the frustration I had last week. I went to see Dr. G. and my hand pain was due to a irritated tendon that was flaring up. So I have to take it easy on that hand and make sure I rest it at night in my special flipper. I was just so glad to know that nothing had torn or ripped in there. I have found the past week that if i rest my hand at night and wear good enough supports during work hours, my hand feels tired, but ok and i can still use it. So for now we have a system that will work. Dr. G. also looked over the pain med program I've been using and we revised it a bit. I have to admit I'm wary of it still a little bit, but in the near week that I've been doing it I have to admit that it is a much better way to keep the pain under control and steady out the day. They put me on oxyxontin twice a day. It seems so hardcore to be on that everyday as a prescription, but it is working better than the vicodin as needed for pain. The vicodin and perocet only last for about 4 hours before the pain returns and it seems like it's always in the back of your mind that soon I'm going to need some more meds. So far with the new stuff, i don't have to think about that at all, it lasts for so long. Dr. G. said it is a slow release pain medication, and so it's better in that way and I can still take the vicodin when I get a ache that needs to go away, like at work sometimes with my hands, if i do a lot of folding or ironing. It just gives me another option for pain control.
I'm also continuing to drop the dosage of prednisone. I'm down to 18mg, and I'm going to be dropping to 17 in a few days. The Humira is starting to really do it's thing again. I gave myself a shot of it on Tuesday and wednesday I could feel the difference! It was a great feeling knowing that I'm back on track with these drug programs again! I'm so tempted to skip the 17mg of prednisone and go to 16mg. I'll have to mull that over a little bit. I do run the risk of having to go back up to 18 if i feel the effects of dropping too quickly.

Must sleep, gotta be up in a few hours for workie workie.

Many happy and loving thoughts,

Anne Let the sun shine on you and wrap you in warmth.

2005-07-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

This is classic Jason. He has his coffee and is very annoyed with me and my camera (he's thinking "honey, i don't wanna be in the picture, i just want to drink my coffee!!")
Posted by Anne

2005-07-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

Michelle, Anthony, Brunie, and Jason after a nice breakfast and a few days in Seattle. We spent the day Monday seeing the sights of Seattle. We saw a baseball game, went to the top of the space needle, rode the monorail and had a pre-game dinner at FX McCroreys.

2005-07-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

One setting up close. I was taking pictures to put together a DR set up manual with pictures for the new employee service guide.

2005-07-23T00:46:00.000-07:00

A fully set table for 9.

2005-07-23T00:42:00.000-07:00

A little flower arrangment I put together from the prior week at the restuarant. My favorite job on prep days is to get everything that is still good from the arrangements and do something with them for the office and one for the cellar for the open house each night before service.

Uh-Oh!

2005-07-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

Very Frustrating!!!

I have to say this is one of the more frustrating days in quite a while for me. Yesterday at about 5 or 6 pm my right hand started hurting and by the time I went to pick up Jason from work I could barely lift my hand. As of now it does feel better than it did last night. I was one handed at work today with was extreamly frustrating. I got so used to having two usable hands again. Good luck for me though I had a helper that was willing to be a gentleman and do all of the things that really use two hands. Thanks Gary.

I called my doc when I was at work before it was the end of their work day and asked what I should do and Kari asked a few questions and told me I had to come in Thursday. She didn't tell me what it could be, just said "crap, we gotta see ya." I'm guessing at this point that it is a tendon that has snapped that was thin already. But in my little life I get all kinds of ideas in my head that make sense until someone that actually knows what they are talking about looks and tells me something new. Last night when I was hurting Jason suggested that we just amputate. I'm begining to think that it might not be such a bad thing, I would be a lot more predictable with my health. Maybe I could even get a fake hand like Munson in KingPin!

This also comes on the day when I was looking at my prednisone history and decided that I needed to drop another mg down, so down to 18. And the strange thing about this latest episode is that I'm not grossly swollen, it just hurts. When I told Kari that it wasn't swollen and it was my surgical wrist and what level of prednisone I was at, that's when she said crap. I don't know what it means, I just want to get better so I can be the Anne that I used to be. I don't want another stumbling block, I just want to get stronger! I was just getting to the point at work that I was carrying the glasses back out to the tables for the walking, which was so good! I had basically eliminated the need for the cart! I was doing so well.......

I really shouldn't be so negitive, I don't know what it is. All I know is that the pain meds I have aren't doing anything, and it's hurty. I should wait until tomorrow until I make judgment on what it is. Ya wanna know why? Cause today I found out that I wear a "happy filter"! let me elaborate further...

At work today was a team building all employee meeting. I'm the abnoxious person at the meetings. Very talkitive at these things to get people loosened up and get them talking. Anyway, by seeing this, the guy who was our teambuilder said that I'm a persone with a "happy filter" I find the good in things or the positive things and try to make others happy. Jason is also one of these people. I was very interested in this point of view. Not that I was completely surprised, but I thought that I was a more negitive person at work. But from listening to the guy, it makes sense and I agree. I was very surprised to hear that we are very average as team workers, and talking to Scott (the T.B. that was working with us) he said there are things that could change and should so we could be a better team, and so I suggested that we all knew what it was and it was a little odd how the person that organizes these team building events is usually the one who is the least team-player/team-building in attitude. He said he agreed. So if we know what the problem is or the weak link, how do we fix it? well.... another frustrating point in my day, Scott had to leave when I got to that realization. So he didn't elaborate so much, except that he said that things won't change unless people change their habits... Well, I can tell ya that dude, we don't need to stand in a corner and learn what one another does and how long they have worked there if the people who run the day to day operations doesn't change. Oh well, same shit, different day. I did impress people with knowing just about all of the birthdays in the circle. I think there were about 28-30 people there and I know just about all of the birthdays. The new guy I didn't, and I studdered on Sally's birthday, which is Dec 14. And Julies, which is Oct 5. now I know! I like that I have a "thing" At dinner after the meeting a few different people came up and said they were impressed and asked how I did it. Some people just have their thing and that happens to be mine.

Ok, Jason just got home from work, so i gotta go. hope all goes well tomorrow at the doctor. I'll update when I find out more.

Anne

2005-07-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

Dahilias that are so happy and cheerful on our patio.

2005-07-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes, Finally!

2005-07-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

We have peppers!

2005-07-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

My newest hobby is orchids, this is my first one and I'm learning that they are spectacular in so many ways. I just can't stop looking at it sometimes.

In the Sunshine

2005-07-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

I have to say that this is nearly bliss. I'm sitting on my patio surrounded by tomatoes, peppers, squash plants, and flowers. In the sunshine, i think i forgot to mention that part too. My day off has started absolutly wonderfully. I decided to test out the wireless connection outside, and it works! The connection is pretty poor, but good enough to let me type for a while.

Thomas, Mom, Dad, if you are reading this I would really like to thank you again for buying this laptop for me, it is so great! Jason still hasn't set up his system upstairs!!

Things have been pretty good for me lately I suppose. Not really a whole lot to complain about these days. Health is improving still. I've dropped down on the prednisone to 19 mg and have been able to stay without too much pain for over a week now. I think the Humira is really starting to do it's thing again. I was really tired when I got home from work yesterday, I took a walk after the 9th inning was complete and I wore the wrong shoes... my feet are still hurting from that, but it was good to get out and walk a little bit. I just made it down to 55th before i knew my feet would have a rough time getting back to the house. When I returned to my castle, I promptly went upstairs and fell asleep for a good 4 hours. After I got home from the bar at about 1ish I slept until 6 this morning before i felt like updating my mariner page. I took a shower and headed back upstairs to get some laundry to wash and was lured into taking a nap with Jason who was sleeping so peacefully still.... So now that i have broken away from the sleep heaven, I'm now outside in sunshine heaven typing away so blissfully :)

I finally caught up on all of the ironing at work which feels so tremendous! Ever since we closed for the spring break I've been falling behind with either stacks of tablecloths or doilies. But as of Saturday night I was completly caught up. I feel almost free! Now I can get on the servers again to be picky and diligent about changing out the yucky ones for freshly pressed ones. I also went on a tidy binge at work on Friday I think. I took over Carolyns area for about an hour and dusted the glass shelves, and put up new lables... As I'm typing this, I feel as though I have typed it once before.... oh well, I'm proud of my tidy area! It looks good, you should see it!

It's getting too warm for my little computer to be out here too much longer, i don't want to cause sun damage. And if i actually want to post this i think i have to go inside where the connection is better. So I love ya and hope all is well. Enjoy the sunshine and be happy!

Anne

New Mirror finally!

2005-07-15T00:43:00.000-07:00

I finally got the correct mirror for my car to replace the one that got knocked off about 2 months ago. Now I just have to get someone a little stronger than I am to push in the little clippy part. I had it part way, but don't really feel comfortable driving too long with it just half on there. Jason said he'll get it on for me in the morning. It's nice to have that mirror again!!

Woke up late for work again today. Luckily for me we were pretty slow yesterday and tonight, so it was easy to go in late and be fine. I had a itch to get things in different work spaces organized, so i dusted in the glassroom and tidied my tea building supply area. I also put up little lables for the new glasses on the wine wall. The old ones were just starting to peel off and were outdated since the change of brands of stemware. Thinking of why I had the urge to tidy things was maybe because when i was stocking the retail hutch out in the salon, the center shelf on one side fell while I was putting out lotions. It was steadied on something below, and that gave me enough time to call the office for a little assistance in my little conundrum. Anna came down and held the shelf while I cleared the shit to find the peg to reinsert and resteady the shelf. Anyways, that gave me the opportunity to reorganize and put some things where i think they look better in my eyes, I wonder if any of it will be changed by the AM....

I've put the idea into my coworker buddies that we should have a cabin party sometime in August. Sounds like a lot of them would be interested in coming. So I'll talk with some people once we get the Aug scheduel out and I just wanted you to know that I am a giant dork. wait, me or you?---- Jason----- says hi and added a comment.

When I got home from work this afternoon I cooked dinner for myself. I got some onions chopped up and in the skillet, then added some meat to cook, then a few bits of carrot and added the sauce. After it got to a simmer i added some chopped mushrooms and added some basil and parsley from the garden on the patio. I let it simmer until the pasta was cooking. It was fun chopping stuff up and tasting and seasoning to try to get a good flavor. I've missed cooking so much. I watched the pre-game show for the M's/O's while I had my bowl of pasta and french bread. I wish I wouldn't have added the carrots to the sauce, it throws it off somehow, they just don't need to be in there and yet, they are.

As I am talking about cooking, when i was on the way home from picking Jason up from work, he told me that he took the kitchen aid to work... I want to make cookies, and i gotta do it at the rest. kitchen now. But I suppose it is HIS and he WILL have more use for it than I will with my 2 cookie craving days a month.

Arthritis UPDATE---
I've tapered down to 19 milligrams as of about 5 days ago. The first few days I was a little down and sleepy, even in a little more noticeable pain in the joints. But I've trying to be causious of my activity levels. I felt good today. The sun felt so great. I wanted to be a lizard and sleep out in the sun when i got home. From the forcast they are saying it will be nice for the next ten days or so. I will have my chances! The humeria I think is starting to make it's impact again too. I like the day after I take the shot and feel so much better, I guess i feel somehow lighter. Since I got up late this morning and was feeling rushed, I forgot the wrist supports that I've been using at work to take a little of the load. I was curious how I would feel this afternoon and I felt ok, I even did 2 and a half hours of ironing when I got done with dinner. I like to get paid to iron during baseball games, isn't life wonderful?!

Anne

Back to the grind

2005-07-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

After a few days off, it was good to get back to work again. I wish I would have fallen asleep a little earlier than I managed to (after 5 i think!) but I wasn't nearly as cranky as I thought I would be. I did sleep through the alarm then reset it with out actually setting the alarm to ring... oopsie. It all turned out though, as it always does. I got to work only 45 minutes early instead of the 2 1/2 that I would have prefered. We are having service for a private party of 22 tonight and so that means that I had to do my prep work with Gary and then on top of that do the setting and getting my part of the restaurant ready for the guests. I was a little stressed out for about 2 hours, but again, we banged out all of the prep stuff and I was out of work about an hour and a half later than I wanted. I really wanted to get out of there early enough to get to the Chevy dealership to pick up the correct replacement glass mirror part for my car, but they close at 5 and I didn't get out of work until after 6... oh well. Tomorrow morning i can stop on my way in.

I got to watch part of the All Star game with Erin and John Payne at Joe's on Roosevelt yesterday. We had dinner and chatted about baseball and what's going on in our little worlds. I forgot how much I missed fighting with someone about baseball. John and I are working on setting a bet on the record of the SF Giants and Seattle Mariners once Barry Bonds gets back from his steriod recovery.. oops , I mean surgery recovery and all those infections....

Fun news from the world of Jasons new place of work. The name of the place once it is complete in the change over will be called "The Jones" of course after my honey! Scott and Michele took Jason and I to El Goucho on 2nd and Wall on Monday night to celebrate "The Jones". El Gaucho is a upscale (to say the least) steak house. They know what they are doing there, and service is part of their thing there as well. I was uncomfortable with some of the tableside service they provided... The dude FLUFFED my potato! Get out of my spuds is all I could think. And they escorted me to the ladies room when I had to visit. Also refolding my napkin, which all I could think of that was ... EWWW, it's a DIRTY napkin, I want a NEW one! Overall is was a lovely dinner and the wine was wonderul, it was so very smooth and delicious. We had a Tomasse (?) some sorta Italian red. I had a the El Gaucho Signature steak with Lobster medallions. It came with grilled asparagas and a baked potato. We started the night with steak tartar and finished with (me, and Scott) burnt cream aka creme brulee, (Jason) pineapple cheesecake, (Michele) granny smith apple pie that was so tall it was amazing! I nearly rolled out of the place nearly 4 and a half hours later and felt sick upon returning home from eating too much. But when food tastes so good, it's too hard to stop shoveling it in!!! I have to say that was the high point of my all star break, aside from the Mariners sweeping the Angels on sunday! That's all for today!

Love, Annie

Update

2005-07-10T04:10:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to write an update on here for some time and now that I'm awake at a little after 4 am, I thought it would be a good time. I am a little excited today about my health in a way. I've decided that it is time to start the trial taper of prednisone. I've been back on the Humira for a while now and off of the antibiotics for a few weeks as well. Plus I have an extra day off work this week, which is SO needed. I was reading online last night that prednisone contributes to facial swelling, which explains why my cheeks are so unbelivably huge. And the appitite thing is driving me insane. I can't believe how no matter what I try to do to keep the weight off, it just doesn't go away. I have to make an appointment with my RA doc to discuss these issues and tell her that I've started the taper and ask her what I should be expecting and how slow I should taper since it's been at such a steady dose for so long. I am still having quite a bit of pain in my hands and wrists, but it seems like that is the only major place that I'm having problems. I do get a little stiffness in my feeties when I wear the wrong shoes to work. Like today... I wish I could just get some new hands, does anybody just do hand transplants? I'm very interested to see how this experiment goes with going down on the prednisone since it seems that the infections are all gone and I'm back to a steady med program. It still suprises me how down my health can get me sometimes. I'll just be driving home somedays from work and hear a song on the radio and get all down for the rest of the day. No matter what I say sometimes on how being ill doesn't bother me and it's just part of my life, it can come down like a load of bricks. And it makes me so sad that sometimes I take everything I have for granted and just want to sleep the day away. And the days that I want to do things all I can do is sleep to relieve the pain and recharge my body. And then on the otherhand, I look at my life and can't imagine being without my illness. I don't know if that sounds completly backwards or not, but sometimes I think that my purpose in life is to live through this and see how well I can do with it. All of the pain is so easily forgotten though, i often wonder if I go into remission if i will have been changed at all my my 10 years of learning to deal with cronic pain.
Rachael, the new pastry chef at work was asking what I do when I'm not working and what I do for fun, and I was explaining how idle I am most of the time, but I would love to do all of these things (because we are both interested in crafty things) but sometimes I just can't. I was telling her of my love of professional sports and why I think I like it so much. Really I think it is because of the pure talent that people can power into with their bodies, and that is such a far out thought to me to be able to use your body in that way. I think of all these things that i wish i could do with my hands and my body in general and it just makes me want to be healthy! Anyways, Rachael and I decided to have a little craft party to make cards for the upcoming holidays. I'll have to get practice with Nickki and Kaylie too, maybe it could turn into a big craft party! That would be fun. I really need to tap into my art side again, its been too long. Nickki and I were talking about that when we hung out last week, and I got all excited about it and would love to get a little scrapbook together. I've also been longing to bake again. The kitchen here is so small, but I shouldn't use that as an excuse. Man, complaining is so tiring!
Independence Day was fun this year. I had to work in the morning, we had the investors dinner for 45 people that night at the restaurant and set up was pretty easy since part of the dinner was a BBQ held outside. When I got home, Jason and I headed over to Paul and Tara's for Paulies 28th birthday party. We had bbq hamburgers and a cherry pie that was oh so delious, Tara wasn't happy with the consistancy, but i thought it was delightful that the sauce got to soak into the crust. Jason drooled over their tomato plants and kept standing by their garden looking at thier cilantro and tomatoes.... again and again, he's so funny when he gets into something. We didn't stay too long over there because we had another bbq to attend at Wayne and Stacy's house. There was so much food over there and lots of refreshing drinks on ice. I think I had 5 ciders and got reasonably drunk. Wayne made a dessert that was so rich and yummy everyone was so full from it's richness it was comical. He soaked bananas in rum for about 6 hours, them put them on the grill to carmelize them. Them topped them with coffee ice cream and made a mocha sauce that was warm and made the ice cream melt a little. Jason and I shared a banana that was split in half, but I did eat most of it, even though Jason said he ate half, I think he was just trying to not make me feel like such a cow for eating so much :) For the fireworks this year, Laura and Rod bought a large box of fireworks that a bunch of the men set off at the school parking lot across from W&S's house. Then when the sun set we headed down to the Calvery Catholic Cemetary on 55th (which is one of the highest points around our house) to watch the city display of fireworks on Lake Union. It was beautiful, of course. When it was over Jason, Jon and I tried to beat the rest of the BBQers back to the house because we all had to pee so bad. It was so funny because I'm so out of shape that I didn't realize how much of an incline it was back to the house! But we did beat the crowd and it was so nice to be able to drink and stumble 3 blocks to the house around midnight!
When we were arriving back to the house from the bbq on the 4th, there was a cop car investigating a hit and attempt to run driver (hit a car, not a person!) and a tow truck preparing to take the suspects vehicle away. Being the nosy person that I am and loving any sort of crisis isn't mine, I sat out on our deck watching and trying to see what was happening. I was perplexed because at the time i didn't know what had happened because it looked as though there was a collison, but only one car involved. Not thinking of course that maybe they hit a parked car... So after a while I came back inside and decided to let it be. We them headed to bed. The next morning when I went downstairs to use the bathroom our front door was wide open... So I looked outside and saw Jody standing by his new truck (he bought it maybe 6 weeks ago) and the rear end drivers side was smashed. It turns out that the person that hit his truck was the investigation from the night before and it was a drunk under age kid. Jody told me that our neighbor kept the kid from leaving the scene and got another one of our neighbors to call the police. Apparently the kids stepdad showed up and tried to convience the cops that he was driving and not the kid, but no beans. The kid couldn't drive his car away becuase when he hit Jody's truck it broke the axle (I think that is what he told me) So now poor Jody's truck is in the autobody shop getting an ass job. Jody is not having a good week at all, Gary came over tonight and let Jason and I know that someone broke into his house in Shelton and stole his Harley and dual sport motorcycles, his tools and some other stuff. Gary said the idiot that did it was dumb enough to ride the Harley around shelton so they know who it is or at least where to get the stuff back from, as long as it hasn't been pawned off already. Those motorcycles are Jody's heart and soul, I hope he get's them back!
That's all the complaining I can do for one day. I better get some sleep now since it's past 5 am now. I already got 6 hours of napping in after I got home from work, looks like another weekend to crash!

Annie

2005-06-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

Ouchie!

I'm hurting a little bit right now... and it's not so much the arthritis... Sunday, Fathers' Day Sunday mind you, I happened to come home from work and see what a beautiful day it was outside and take advantage of it. So I set up one of the chairs on the deck, got a refreshing beverage and listened to the baseball game on the radio. My plan WAS to get a little sun and listen to the game then head down to my parents house to hang out with Dad. Unforchantly..... the plan didn't quite work out that way.... The refreshing beverage i grabbed was a beer and I had an empty stomach. So when I drank it, I got drunk... So now that I'm a responsible adult and knew I couldn't possibly drive an hour while intoxicated, I called my Dad and told him my situation and hoped that he would be understanding. He was. And so I made an alternative plan to come out bearing a gift the next day when I was sober and a good daughter again. You see I'm the luckiest girl in the whole world having a Dad that thinks it's ok that I mess up sometimes. Anyways, he told me to have another beer for him, and now being drunk and admitting to my Daddy that I'm a mess up, I did proceed to have another beer, and another and another... AND! not just the weenie 12 ounce beers most people drink, I was drinking the 16 ouncers! So long story short... 4 pints of beer, empty stomach, sunshine, baseball, sleepy.... SUNBURN! I ended up falling asleep after calling my dad, my best bud Nickki and my wonderful boyfriend Jason. I woke up when the sun had traveled away from the deck and I was stiff from the strange postion I passed out in. A little disotented and in a little pain I finally made my way back into the house and ate the lunch I hadn't eaten from work and promtly fell back asleep upstairs in my bed. I woke up about 4 hours later with my skin very tight and painful! Jason called when he got off work about 5 minutes later and I was a little confused and maybe a little drunk still. The worst part of it all is I have no one to blame but myself. For two days I had to wear the top that I was wearing when I got burnt so the lines didn't hurt so bad, and by Wednesday I could wear a sleeveless shirt. However today I went to the baseball game as a fan with my mom and we had awesome seats in left field in the sun all game long. Normally I would be so happy with that situation, but today the best I could I tried to keep my chest covered where I'm still red and starting to peel. But I could do nothing about being hot. Now I have these tiny little bubbles on my burn. I think they are heat blisters or something. Mom and I put aloe on it as soon as we got to my house and I found some vitamin E and have that on too now. As long as I don't move I'm ok, but goodness I wish I could go topless for a little while. I'll take my mom's advice and keep hydrated and keep appling the aloe and E. Oh well, game 7 of the NBA finals is about to start, so I gotta go!

With all my BURNING love,
Anne

Clown Fish

2005-06-23T00:45:00.000-07:00

The clown fish using the flower pot coral as their replacment anenome, but today we bought them a new one so they would leave that poor thing alone... I think they are happy in their new smaller home, as they don't seem to wander away from whatever they want to shimmy and shake in, be it the flower pot or an anenome. The larger of the two clowns is a complete hog of the home... go figure that she is the female of the pair :)

2005-06-23T00:43:00.000-07:00

My little freshwater tank with my tetras and a few other small breeds of water beings. They seem to be enjoying their new home and where they are upstairs with Jason and I. I got a few new black emperor tetras about two weeks ago and they are very cool little guys. They swim around with their heads sorta tilted torwards the bottom of the tank. The long finned leopard danio is still the "big fish" of the tank, chasing everyone else around! I would like to add a few more fish soon to even out the breeds in there, any suggestions?

Much needed day off was good!

2005-06-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

June 6th, 2005
This past week at work was very irritating, i was grumpy and it was busy, not a good combo. Sunday was especially bad. I thought i was going to blow up at someone, but i controled myself and made it home. I was actually supposed to do inventory with Carolyn and Stephanie today. But when Carolyn came in to work yesterday I asked her if she was okay and available to change it until Tuesday, she agreed. I was just a little wary that if i went in to work today and saw some certin people in charge there that i might say something that i shouldn't, so i took myself out of the situation before it could happen. Otherwise things are fan-tab-u-lous!
Jason and I had the day off together today. We got a few errands ran this morning and I finally dropped the give away stuff off at value village that has been in my trunk for a MONTH! That feels good!! After that we got coffee at the Lake Forrest Park Rooster Coffee and headed to the Fish Store on Roosevelt. There we purchased a few new pets for my fish tank. I got 3 black emporer tetras. They are so pretty, they have a long fin in the back that sort of looks like a skirt tetra, but it's slightly shorter. They are black in color but it fades from the darkest point at their mid-section to a pale grey to the top fins. When they are stationary their heads sort of point downwards, which is a little funny looking, but they are very beautiful little fish. We also got a better light for my tank. Jason says it's nuch better for the plants and it does look more like natural light, which i think makes the cardinal tetras look more brillant. I'm also happy to report that my yoyo loach is pleasently plump on all of the snails that came in on the plants that i got from petco awhile back. It's comical when the loach swims around because he's like a pregnant lady waddling (sp?)!
We are also finally getting all of the empty boxes and give away stuff in the appropriate places (trash, recycle, charity stores...) After Mom and Dad delivered my dresser on Saturday (THANKS AGAIN!) I got inspired and did my laundry! Then on Sunday in trying to cure my bad mood, I unpacked and cleaned my little lillipution room upstairs. I have gotten all but 3 boxed completly unpacked. The ones unpacked i'm not sure if i will unpack them as they are my little knicknacks that can stay packed until the next place we move into I think. It's so amazing how much more space there seems to be in there now that it isn't all boxes and "stuff". I have also inspired Jason to hook up his computer! I put it all on the desk in a way that looked like it was operational, then he came upstairs and said in a very excited voice "you set it up?!" but I said "nope, honey, I'm gonna let you do that, especailly since there is only one outlet in this room and it's WAY over there" :) of course I ended in a BIG smile. So this morning he got most everything in working order and ready for his gaming. We even have a wireless internet thingy that Nick bought but doesn't need.
After we both worked on our tanks and got junk dealt with, we settled down and watched game seven of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, Detriot vs Miami. It was a pretty close game throughout. At halftime Jody and Jason went and got dinner at the little terriaki place down the street while i proptly fell asleep and didn't wake up until the start of the 4th quarter when the boys returned. We ate and watched the very close playoff game come to a dramatic finish with the defending champion Pistons coming out on top by 4 points. I wanted to see Shaq in the finals while Kobe was sitting at home crying in his beer, but it didn't happen and now the San Antionio Spurs will face the Pistons of Detroit in a pretty good match-up. THEN, finally the NBA playoffs (which are entirely way tooooooooooo long) will be over! We can finally focus on the important sport BASEBALL!

With LOVE, Anne

This post won't last long!

2005-06-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

This wont last long because I know when I'm sober I will delete it. I've been drinking, which I haven't done in this mood for a LONG time. I'm having a very bad self hate day. Too many things on my mind today and I probably shouldn't share any of this with the world, but what the hey, right now, I DON'T CARE!
The day didn't start off any way unusal or anything, but it just isn't right in my world today. Yesterday i was grateful for everything that came my way, but today all i want to do is disappear. I'm achey and tired and sick of being grumpy. Jason had a suprise day off and I all but ruined it by my bad mood. We haven't spoken much at all today because I'm a bitch. Why can't I be a good person on days when i'm around people I love?

Jason just gave me a present, I think i might just cry. Damn it, sometimes I hate being a stupid GIRL!

Good news, the Mariners just won! 3-0!!! Gil Meche went over 7 innings and gave up only 5 hits, good job Gil! Villone, Nelson, Thorton and Gudardo finsihed the game giving up only one more hit between them to shut out the Jays and win the series 2 games to 1. They have the day off tomorrow to rest and get pumped back up to face the old skipper Lou Piniella and his Tampa Bay Devil Rays for a 3 game series starting this Friday at 7:05 at the wonderful and never bad seat, Safeco Field.

My goodness it's been so long since Ive drank!

I have to work tomorrow. I have to clean the restaurant tomorrow. I have to put on a happy face tomorrow. I have to get prepared for it all tomorrow and get over this whimpy bad attitude I have.

anne

Good news of the health front!

2005-05-31T15:04:00.000-07:00

May 31st, 2005
I saw Dr. Hori again today for another checkup on the infection, and it seems that I'm stable on the Zyvox and my blood work looks good. He also gave me the go ahead to start the Humira again! Which is what I have been waiting for! It seems like such a long time ago that I was on a routine with all my meds and such. I wrote in an e-mail to my mom today that I feel like a regular arthritis patient again, almost :)
I have to see Dr. Barthell to get x-rays and have her look at my surgery site to make sure it looks okay to her. But it seems like I'm almost back to normal and I HOPE that once I'm on the Humira again that I will be able to taper the prednisone and start getting back to a more normal weight and lose these HUGE cheeks that I've grown over the past 17 months!!! It's going to be a good summer, I'm going to be able to work Mariner games and work full time at the Herbfarm and start making some money to have some FUN!!!
I'm working at Safeco tonight at the Mariners vs Blue Jays tonight. The Mariners have won 3 in a row and seem to be playing a little more relaxed baseball, which is so NICE to see. The games that we've been winning have been close, the past two have been by 1 run, but we've held on and had some great defensive plays behind the pitching to save the games. Bringing back Pat Borders, I think, was brilliant. Especially since Dan Wilson will be out for at least a year, if not retiring from baseball all together. Yesterday Meguel Olivo was sent down to AAA to work on his offense I'm guessing since he was hitting only .150. But the pitchers are reacting so well to Borders behind the plate. I think because he's worked with Moyer and Sele before and they trust him and his calling of the pitches. Not that Olivo is a bad at calling the game, but he isn't a seasoned vet of the game and I just don't think there is the trust that there is with Borders. In last nights game the announcers said that the battery of Moyer and Borders was the oldest in MLB history with Borders being 42 years old and Moyer at 41 or 42 (I don't remember exactly) But my goodness, that is funny! The offense is picking up as well, which is good to see. Sexson belted another homer yesterday and Jeremy Reed was the hero of the past few games with crutial hits and RBI. He also got his first ML homerun in Tampa Bay on Saturday! So congrats to Mr. Reed! Anyways, I think I should get my things ready and head down to the ballpark. I believe that we are going up against one of the best pitchers in the league tonight in Roy Halliday. Good luck Mariners :)

with love, Anne

Pattered by rain drops

2005-05-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

May 19th, 2005

Ever have one of those days where it's not a bad day because nothing has gone wrong or nothing is out of the ordinary, but you just don't feel like you really want to be a part of any of it? I had a ok day at work, again nothing out of the ordinary, just doing my thing out in the dining room. Ron was running around trying his best to perfect the already perfect restaurant for a special VIP guest tonight. Everyone else was doing thier jobs and being normal and working hard. Maybe it's all of the rain. I love the rain, and it's been stormy and gusty the past two days. It just wears me out sometimes. I even slept well last night and got up and got ready for work in a good mood. I bought my very own travel mug so i could make tea or coffee and enjoy it on my commute. I even had a very filling bowl of oatmeal. I was also wearing a dress and sandles, so i was very springy and cheery looking as well. Once I got to woodinville i was the first to arrive (Carrie had been in but was at the Thurs. morning meeting at willows) so i did a few open the restaurant things like tidying up and sweeping the entrance. Sally came in next and is always a treat to see. She's always happy and seems happy to see you. I like her so much. When I was sweeping the front walkway outside, Rachel, our new pastry chef arrived, and she is a very cheery person as well. So as far as the first few hours of my day went, everything was peachy. There were some changes made to the layout of the dining room for tonights dinner, which again isn't unusual or bad in anyway. I got to work early enough to have enough time to be as detailed as i wanted and have a low stress day. But sometimes when you know that a VIP that means so much to someone there can be a underlying stress that you don't really realize. and maybe that's it. I kept feeling myself trying to make things perfect for Ron. I just know how much these two days mean to Ron and Christine and the Herbfarm for that matter. I was talking to Christine right before I left to go home and I suppose that started to bring me down a little. She asked if I had talked to my brother Tom about how Carrie had asked Thomas to come and APPLY for the server position at the HF. It pissed me off. That just seems so rude to say "hey, I know you've done the job, people here like you, you know the business well, and I think that since I'm extremly desperate I think I'll ask my genious nephew to come and APPLY, instead of " Hey Thomas why don't you come work with us, I know you are good at what you do and it would be great for both of us. How about i make it worth your while and you come back and work with us!" She just pushes people away and takes advantage of very nice people that turns them into hurt people and makes me just want to take all I can from her instead of, I don't even know what. AND on top of that, all of the service staff this past paycheck got a nice little bonus in thier checks for the past few weeks of being busy. No cooks got the bump, no pantry stewards, no office staff, no dishwashers/prep cooks, no dining room set up girl. Just service staff because they were bitching that they were understaffed, which they were, but so was everyone else! I guess that's why I'm pissed off, carrie, again. I'm glad that the servers are getting attention because otherwise they will walk. But me getting my little payraise is almost a kick in the ass when they are getting bonus checks for friday the 13th and then another in the paycheck. I said something to Christine that at the time just flew out of my mouth without thinking too much about it. BUT I said that i was planning on working my ass off the next 6 months and show them how much they need me, and then go in and see what she offers as far as pay, also tell her that if i'm not shown enough love that i should move on and go to school and start doing something with my life because making under 13 dollars an hour isn't what a 25 year old woman should be makng. Let alone be setting tables and being called a set up girl. For Ron being so into titles seems like he would give me something a little more interesting that Dining Room Pre-Set. I guesswhat I'm getting at is that i just don't really feel appreciated the way I would like to be. Not that i don't feel welcome or appreciated by my co-workers, I do. But Management SUCKS! she is so cheap in areas where she should spend a little more and extravagant in areas where it just doesn't make sense. She is a great business person in some way and just HORRIBLE in many others. And it seems like she thinks that she is joking with people and being sarcastic, but she doesn't know how to pull the whole thing off and it just makes her odd and i don't like to be around her and I'm uncomfortable. I just don't know. And I'm getting so fat, and ugly, and gross! BUT! the silver lining in that is that i'm also getting healthier arthritis wise. It's a hard line to pull, I'm failing as of now.

I'm getting weaker,

Anne

Nickki and Cohen

2005-05-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

Some pictures of my best friend and her youngest child Cohen moments after his arrival. I got to be there with them and it is something I won't ever forget. Doesn't Nickki look amazing for just giving birth!?! Cohen Theodore born 11.10.2004

2005-05-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

May 14th, 2005

I worked the Mariners game last night with Stuart as the spotter. We were playing the World Champion Boston Red Sox, and actually won! I don't know if it was a Friday the 13th happening or what. But it was one of the funnest games I have been to in quite a long time. It was good to see the M's score some runs and get rallies going in more than one inning.(Seattle 14, Boston 7) Working the game last night made for a long day since I had to set The Herbfarm in the AM and try to be done by a reasonable hour so I don't get caught in too much traffic. However, we at the Herbfarm were a little bit full, cramming 6 additional people in the main dining room for a total of 71. Poor servers... Anyways, I got out of Woodinville by about 4 and was a the safe by the time they opened the gates for ticketholders. I was so hungry when I got there so I went to the cafateria and got a salad and a turkey on rye. It was so good, but I ate so much I didn't eat for the rest of the day. Seems like that has been the way it's been the past few days. I won't eat breakfast, then I'll have one large meal and not eat for the rest of the day. Which is cool with me, but I don't know how healthy it is. But the game was very cool. Sexson and Ibanez hit back to back homeruns and Beltre hit his first Safeco Field homerun that went 440 feet to center field. It wasCRUSHED! and to top off the entire night, when Stuart and I were going down the elevator to get to field level who walks on the elevator? Dave Niehaus and Ron Fairly! I was a little shy, but we made a little small talk about the game and all the runs scored. I got the feeling they didn't appreciate how long the game took and the poor pitching on both sides, but I thought it was good to have a good run output in front of the home town fans especially against the world champions! An update on the Mariners for tonight was a 6-3 loss to the same Red Sox. The series is tied with one game apiece with the rubbergame tomorrow afternoon. The Sonics are also in town playing game 4 at the Key versus the Spurs at 4 pm, I think it should be a heated game, lots of emotion. Game 3 was very aggressive, should be a good one!

I'm going to turn in my review tomorrow. I got a raise, but i have to say I was a bit surprised at the raise. Disappointed really. But I asked Jason to read the review paper carrie gave me after we met, and I think that he had some good points and was honest with me. I hadn't seen that point of view, and I suppose I didn't want to. But now it just makes me want to work harder the next six months to show her and the rest of my co-workers how good I am at my job and how much ICAN help out now that I have a much better use of my hand. But it also pisses me off that my hand is what is being held against me. I know I had to miss time off, but I did my best to find a good person to cover and train them. I wrote a detailed procedure and even came back to work WAY too early from the wrist fusion surgery. Now that I'm writing this I want to talk to her and tell her she has a few good points, but I feel that she's holding my disability against me when it hasn't. If anything I've become a more valuable employee and should be rewarded. I also feel slightly hurt that I'm her niece and I get no accnoligment for sticking with the company for so many years and doing all I can to help this restaurant be the best it can. Now I'm pissed off. This afternoon I was feeling selfish for even thinking that I wanted a raise or better benefits! Oh well, I'm going to sleep on it and see how I feel in the morning...

Jason is working late cleaning fava beans for the Taste of the Nation event that many of the fine dining restaurants are participating in. The Herbfarm included. But that means that I don't get to hang out with him. It's so funny, since we moved in together we see less of eachother and have less hang time together. I guess it's been a few weeks and we've both had weird schedules. I think he has tomorrow off, so i'll try to get off at a reasonable time to hang and watch some sporting events with my honey :) On that note, I must go pee and get to sleep!

ANNE

A small set back, no worries though

2005-05-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

I had been trying to taper my prednisone starting last week since I had been feeling so good. So I dropped down to 19 mg from 20mg. and I was hoping that I wouldn't feel a difference and be able to continue tapering a mg a week. However starting to feel the need for naps and feeling slightly achey all the time, i decided that it wasn't yet time to drop to the teens on the prednisone. I think that I will wait until I start on the humira again and then I know I will be able to drop for sure!
Even though I took a nap yesterday and felt achey today I still worked both HF and Mariners and felt good to do that. I don't think I'll be too worn out for HF in the morning.speaking of that job thing in the AM i must get sleep! goodnight.

Anne

Less stress and feeling good

2005-05-06T00:04:00.000-07:00

MAY 5, 2005 --- 05.05.05

I had my employee preformance review today and it went well. I stated my case for a increase in pay and I don't think I'll end up being offered what I deserve and I'll have to decide how I want to go about that when we get there. I have a feeling that it will be a while unitl she gets back to me on the next step of the review process. Especially since I was so eager to get the review done this time. I'm going to be taking on looking after the retail side of things for awhile and see how that goes. It seemed like we talked about a lot of things and I suppose we did meet for about 45 minutes. All of the "areas with room for growth" were pathetic. She searched for three things to gripe me on and I had very good responses to all and made them pretty much non-issues. One of them had to do with focusing light bulbs... another was about my "flappy jeans" with I haven't worn in 2 years!!! oh, the shirts I wear also show too much skin... com'on they are sleeveless, not low cut at the neck and high at the waist. Anyway, i was very calm and collected, I had told myself before I met with her that no matter what my downfalls on her point of view of me were, that I would take them into consideration and not get defensive and talk too loudly, which I seem to do when i get all excited about something. Overall though there were way more attributes that room for growth topics. And on another note she seemed to get defensive when I mentioned the fact that I have worked for her and Ron for the past 8 years filling in when they needed someone and I was in state. I also mentioned that I was good at what I do and I like what I do. I think as a whole I stated a good case. But as I said, we'll find out in a few weeks when she gets back to me. I'm just glad it's over for another six months! Less stress for my poor little head should make the body feel better.
I didn't have a nap today for the 4th or 5th consecutive day. I was tired tonight when I got home, but I didn't wan't to fall asleep since it was already so late in the evening. So I watched the Rockets beat the Mavricks from the start of the 2nd half. Mavs didn't do poo poo in the 4th quarter, it was sad to watch them shoot and miss nearly every shot from the 8 minutes mark to the end of the game. Houston also went on a 18-0 run at one point. Anyway, after that I got some ironing done that has been piling up from work. After an hour of that I got sick of it and stopped for the night. Now I'm just sitting in bed testing the new wireless card from the attic bedroom. So far so good!
Today is Nickki's 25th birthday and it's also 05-05-05. She called me this morning to let me know that Sarah and family will be leaving WA as of tomorrow I believe. I didn't get to see her and meet Ethan. I tried to call Nickki tonight on my way home when I was in stop and go traffic on the 520 bridge, but she was up at the cabin with Sarah. I tried the cabin, but it was busy. I'll have to call her tomorrow to see how the entire visit with Ray went and how 05-05-05 was for a 25th birthday.
That's all my wrist can handle for now, even though it is feeling better i just can't over-do it until these bones are fully fused together.
Anne

My arthritis story.

2005-05-04T23:06:00.000-07:00

The begining of me as I know me.

First a little background info for any people reading this that don't know me. I'm 25, living in Seattle and working as much as my tired body will let me. I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at age 16, but i began feeling pain in my wrists soon after I turned the ripe old age of 15. But you must understand that i'm a very stubborn person when it comes to some things, and for some reason being a self concious teen i didn't feel like i wanted a doctor telling me my body was off somehow. Anyways, I finally decided to get treatment when I was 16 and found out that I didn't like doctors much and thought that i would be just as well off treating myself by sleeping and ignoring the swelling and pain. That worked well for about two years... I would have morning stiffness that i could deal with, yes it was annoying, but not as annoying as that damn doctor telling me what to do! Soon after i turned 18 i came down with some sort of nasty cold or flu that set off my immune system horribly. My mom and I had taken a trip to Arizona to visit family and watch some spring training baseball games. I don't remember if one of my family members had been sick and i got the bug from them or possibly from the stress of traveling and all that airline air! Long story short with this fact, my arthritis took over and I went on to lose over 25 pounds in few months, and could work about 15 hours a week. Which I still don't believe I was able to work at all. I used to have to set an alarm for an hour before i wanted to wake up and take some pain medication, try to not move for that following hour so it could have a chance to work. Then when my alarm would go off for me to wake up for real, I would have to take more pain meds just so i could have the flexibility to drive to work and walk to my desk once I got there. I actually only worked for about 6 months before I thought that I was seriously killing myself by trying. I worked for the Herbfarm in the accounting office from March-September that year. I have memories of me trying to fall asleep and wishing that I wouldn't wake up the next day and have to go through the pain of getting out of bed the next morning. Everything was painful. And yet, get this, I still didn't want the help of doctors. My parents didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I thought there was no hope, for a time I didn't want there to be any hope. I was in the mind frame that I could never have a normal shot at life because i was a mess. I could hardly walk, all I wanted to do was sleep, and I would beg my mom to shoot me so i could have peace. (I can't believe you are still reading this, I'm so depressing, but thanks, it does get better, I promise!)
Needless to say that one day my mom was talking to her sister that lived in Arizona about me and somehow they came upon the idea of me becoming a snowbird. Or maybe it was my mom's idea that she asked Kim about, I don't recall anymore. But anyhoo, the idea was born and I decided that sunshine felt just as good as sleeping sometimes, so it was worth a shot. I moved down to Salome into the Betts household in October of 1999. Since Kim and Rick had opened a bakery in Salome a year or so before, in exchange for them letting me stay with them, I would help out at the bakery as much as I felt i could. The dry air felt so good down there!!! Within a few days I was feeling better, homesick, but i could certinley feel my bones drying out. I liked working at the bakery too. I found out that i liked selling donuts and talking with all the fellow snowbirds, finding out where they were from and what the plans for the winter were. It's amazing how small the world is. I would get so excited when someone from Washington State would stop in for coffee or pizza. It blew my mind that so many people in this TINY town knew where I grew up.
So I liked working at the bakery and loved the sunshine. Kim used to compare me to a lizard because i was happiest soaking up the rays of the sun. I couldn't get enough, i was feeling better and taking less pain medication. I was even gaining some weight back, and working at a job that i liked and was good at. Plus, I got to drink coffee and talk baseball with some of the grandpas of the town, I could hold my own in a conversation, actually no, I owned those conversations, I am always right when it comes to baseball! Damn it!
Rick's mother, Morita, would come into the bakery every morning with Zeke and have their morning coffee and donut. Zeke would do the crossword in the Arizona Republic and Morita would gossip with the locals and always ask how I was doing. We were partners in pain as we used to say. It was funny, I could always tell when a rain storm was coming usually a few days before it would rain. I would be slightly tired and a little more achey. I would warn people that the rain was coming. I was the finally a weather girl like I had always dreamed of being, just not in the way I thought... Life has a funny way of working out sometimes. Anyways, Arizona was doing my health well, my spirts were rising again. I would continue to go down to Arizona for the Fall and Winter months (basically the baseball offseason) for 3 years.
In the summer of 2000 Nickki had the idea of buying a house and Debra and I would live all together. But she also sat me down and told me that basically if we were going to go out into the real world that I would have to be able to bring in a steady income. Which means getting help, going back to doctors and getting real treatment for my arthritis. It sounded like a plan that I needed to follow through with. My family was sick of seeing me in pain and withering away. Nickki had finally gotten through to me and I went and saw a specialist. The doctor I went to see was very cool and easy to talk with. The assistant to the doctor was a very cool person as well, a actual person that understood that i was a person and not another file with symtoms to fix. It's a good patient/doctor relationship.
The first thing they decided for my treatment was to try to stop the damage that was happening and eventually try to repair damage that had happened. They started me on 25 mg of prednisone, a anti-inflamitory pain medication, plaquinil, and methotrexate. My only concern with all of these drugs was with the methotrexate, since it was a drug that is a form of chemotherapy, i couldn't drink alcohol for at least 6 months. I eventually got over that and decided that they knew what they were doing with my situation and I had to start somewhere if i wanted to get back on the road to good health.
When i started taking the prednisone it was so funny, I had so much energy I was talking fast and wanted to do everything under the sun that i hadn't be able to do in a few years. Prednisone is a anti-inflamitory steriod, which did me wonders. I felt like i had been given my life back within a few days on this magical stuff. It was like speed though, i couldn't sleep very well, and just wanted to clean and walk around the neighborhood and be active! When I went back to see Dr G, they began to taper my prednisone because odviously i was on a little bit too much. Life was a little more normal after that. I was still loving having less pain though. The summer of 01 washing cars became something that i loved to do. I would wash my parents cars and mine at least once a week and when gramps came over or Nickki, i would wash theirs too. I was a car washing, prednisone taking little freak! I began gaining my strength and decided that I would spend last Winter down south in Arizona. Going back was good, I worked A LOT down there that year. But I had the energy most of the time. I got to work the night shift with Andy and Rick making the donuts, I became a good donut froster! It was also my responsibility to make the turnovers and danish everynight. I really enjoyed working that shift. Then I would go back to the house and sleep for a while and go back around the lunch time hour and let Kim have a rest at home. I would usually stay though the dinner rush and help close up the bakery and count the till while the rest of the crew would do the cleaning and finish the dishes.
When I got back from AZ that spring Debra and I had been talking about moving to Phoenix and starting a life out in the desert because it was cheaper to get a place and the sunshine was good for my health. But as I was back home with my family and feeling ok, health wise, in Washington I didn't really want to leave my family and friends here. I let Debs down majorly there, because we had made plans. But she was living with my parents and that summer we decided that we would try a few courses at GRCC to extend our minds a little. It was a good thing, brought Debra back into the world of brainiacs, like she belongs. And gave me a sense that i could do something well and learn new things. We took 2 classes that Fall quarter at Green River, a sociology class and a Northwest History class. We both we top students in the classes. Once finals were over I didn't quite know what I wanted to do, but i knew I needed a job. I didn't have enough money to go back to school and I just needed cash flow. It's so funny how things work out sometimes... About 3 days before our last final, I was looking in the classifieds for a job, I wasn't finding much, so i went online to check my e-mail and Carrie had written me asking if I would be interested or have time to do dining room set up for the restaurant. I was interested. My only concern was would I be able to do it physically. So I e-mailed Thomas to find out the specs on what the job involves, since he had been doing it on a fill in basis for quite some time. He said I could handle it, so i set up a try out day with Carrie.

On December 16th, 2001 I had my try out day with Thomas and was a little nervous. But the job sounded like so much fun. I got to basically play house everyday and get paid for it. Setting tables... It sounds so simple, but it is so detail oriented that it's stressful sometimes. I'll have to post a picture of one of the tables all set and in it's glory. It's not hard whatsoever, but again, so many details that make the difference on how the entire dining room is pulled together. Long story short with the job end of things, I enjoyed it and accepted the job they offered. It was a long drive out to the Herbfarm, but at the time I had just been given a Cadillac from my Grandmother who no longer drove and knew I needed a nicer car than the car I was born in (yet another story altogether) Anyways, I had a comfortable ride to get to work and wasn't concerned with the commute. I also could do much of the folding for the restaurant at home and could make my hours fit around the rush hour traffic if I desired to do so. It was exactly what I needed at the time and I'm still working at the same job currently! It was a absolutly wonderful turn in my life to have a full time job that I loved and I could do physically. I also really enjoyed the people I worked with. I was very shy at first, but I eventually came around and opened up a little. The Herbfarm is where I met Jason. I'll have to have a whole new section on just Jason because he's just too good to be just an add on in another story!

Moving on now, and to recap a little... Here I am now in my story at 21 years old, my first full time job and feeling like I just might make it out in this little thing we call life. Thinking of actually moving out of my parents nest and making a life for myself. I was living a halfway normal life and getting stronger every week from my new job (there was a lot of walking to get used to and standing when i was folding) I was actually getting treatment and making headway with the medicines. Life is getting better every single day!
To be honest now, it's taken me way too long to write this over a span of days, and frankly I'm just tired of writing about it :) ... So as of today I'm a ripe old age of 25, the past 17 months have been filled with surgeries (4), physical therapy, many infections (my body doesn't desolve the desolvable stiches and that led to ongoing problems), which was also filled with course after course of antibiotics and those wore me out to no end and made working difficult! But this last surgery (I had my wrist fused in February and the steel rods taken out in April, a month early again because my body was being a bitch and wouldn't just let them be) I think I see light at the end of this one handed tunnel! I'm seeing a infectious disease doctor that has confirmed that I super antibiotic resistant staph. infection which hasn't helped my arthritis and all that jazz. I'm currently on a new antibiotic that I think is working because after less that a week of taking it I have more energy that I have in months. I suppose it could be just a coinsidence (sp?) but I have a good feeling that finally this will work. I'm also looking forward to being able to start taking the Humira again, I can certinly tell when I take that, it gives me good energy and feels like it greases my joints up :)
Thank you for reading my little story, sorry to cut it like I did at the end, but what can I say I got impatient, if you know me at all, you know that it's nothing out of the ordinary.

We finally found a place to rest our bones!

2005-04-26T01:03:00.000-07:00

What a strange day today was, but Jason and I survived and are very tired now. Actually, he's very cute cuddled up in the covers snoring very lightly :) We started out the day by dropping off the applications and credit reports to a rental house that we were all interested in. When we got there, the landlord had a sorta weird vibe goin on. I didn't get a good feel, but since i hadn't seen the inside of the house, Stuart and I began a little self tour. It is a nice house, beautiful views of the mountians, great entertaining deck, new appliances in the kitchen. Just a very nice place to live. But apparently the guy thought there were going to be only 4 applicants for the house and when I showed up he made the excuse that there might be too much traffic throughout the house... yada yada yada... We went from the floating on air feeling that we were going to land this pad, to feeling like we wern't good enough because someone else better came along... Punch in the tummy if you ask me. He said he'd call with his decision by Tuesday NIGHT, not evening, NIGHT. and he knows what our situation is. So it was really a piss off move from him. So we moved on and went to the other option. Wedgewood. Its larger than Mr. butt-heads house. Not as nice, by any means, but it's certinaly livable and I wouldn't be uncomfortable about bringing any one out to see it. The color is a little interesting, they chose a lovely 60's mint green. However there is lots of space for all our crap. The odd thing i found about the house is that the washer and dryer and in the kitchen, so it's one of the first things you see when you enter the door. But I think with all of our junk in there it will be homey and nice.
I also went and saw Dr. Hori, he is a infectious desease specialist. He took some labs and prescribed a antibiotic that will kill the bacteria i have growing, but it is a very expensive one. When I tried to fill it at the pharmacy, the insurance co. said it was too much, but Dr. Hori said he will fight for me to get it, because it's what i need to kill this nasty nasty infection. He aslo mentioned that there may be infection in the bone graft. Which i don't know what that eventually means, but it's not a good happy thing. The drugs he is prescribing me is a 6 week course of zyvox, i think that's what it is called. Side effects can be bad, so we are going to see how I react for two weeks, and then see if i can procede. If i can't tolerate it, they will do a weekly IV antibiotic. They also will be taking labs every week to count my blood cells, platletes, and my sed rate. a few other things as well. It sounds like it's a heavy duty drug and it could make me "goofy" But!! I can drink with this antibiotic!! I can celebrate my new home with the boys! We are signing the lease in the morning and already have one set of keys. We wrote them a check and gave them our credit reports already. Soooooo, unless something strange happens in the next ten hours, I will have a Wedgewood address! Must go to sleep now. I'll keep you all updated on the drug front in my world when I find out if insurance will cover these 100 a day habit they want me on :)

LOVE,
Anne

2005-04-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

This is me in Arizona stopping for a rest on a hike.

First posting!

2005-04-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered the blogger idea from my mom last night and today i got the idea that i could keep a health update/journal for my arthritis on here. It may change as i do often change my mind. Or simply get bored with it... Who knows, I may just find a few people that are in the same boat I'm in with my JRA and be able to share stories.