First thing: I forgot to post yesterday. Oops! I am not going to let missing a day deter me, though. I’m still going to try to post every day. Maybe I’ll actually accomplish literally every day in July.

Second thing: I decided I wanted to change things around here, so I’ve just moved my blog to WordPress. So far I’ve managed to import all the posts from the previous blog software, but I’ve done absolutely nothing about the layout or other aesthetics. I’ll keep working on it through the weekend (and probably beyond), but in the meantime don’t be surprised if it keeps changing. The content will remain, though!

My next post was going to be another house post, but I think I’ll save that for a day when I need a ready-made subject.

My brand new Electra Townie

Nik and I bought bicycles a couple of weeks ago (that’s mine, on the left–a marketing photo, anyway, I’ll get a shot of my fully tricked-out bike some time) and, because this is rainy Portland after all and it was only May, we haven’t had much opportunity to ride them yet. In fact, until today we’d only been on one 3-mile long ride.

Today, however, the weather was spectacular so we decided to ride our bikes down to Sellwood; I was going to my Community Sock Club lunch and Nik was going to go have a bite at Grand Central Bakery and probably spend some time at the library while I was busy. It’s about 4 miles there, which shouldn’t be too bad even though I am rather out of shape after another tough winter.

But…I made a tactical error. Actually, I was really dumb. I didn’t eat much of a breakfast before we left and I could tell pretty much from the moment I started pedaling that something wasn’t right. My thigh muscles instantly felt fatigued, but of course I tried to convince myself that I’d be okay.

Yeah. Not so much. I made it about 15 blocks from our house–3/4 of a mile–and had to stop and lie down so I didn’t pass out. Sigh. Nik ended up riding back home to get the car so he could pick me and my bike up and deliver me to my lunch.

The lunch, as always, was fantastic (Deb always has a great menu!) and it was great chatting with my fellow knitters and catching up with friends I don’t get to see very often. And the yarn was dyed by Sharon of Stitchjones!! (As you may or may not recall, I am a HUGE fan! I love her yarn and her beautiful, wild colors.)

I’m disappointed about the aborted bike ride but I was able to rescue the day and still had a great afternoon.

Maybe the weather will allow us another chance sometime soon…

Last I updated you all regarding the house, we were just about finished with the big siding, insulation, windows, and paint project. Since then, we haven’t gotten a whole lot new done. Last year we tore out our front porch deck and replaced it. Here’s what it used to look like:

A couple of progress shots:

And after staining (it doesn’t look quite so uneven anymore, but it could still use another coat of stain):

We still have to re-do the porch railings, but that’s quite an improvement, huh?

I’m off work for the next four days (woohoo!) and I plan to do a bunch of knitting and cuddling with kittens–and try to get at least one bike ride in (more on that later!)–plus I have the Community Sock Club lunch on Saturday. Should be both a relaxing and fun long weekend.

Tomorrow I’ll continue the house updates with photos of last winter’s project.

After such a long blog absence, it’s tempting to try to catch everything up all at once. I’m going to try not to do that, though, because it’d probably be long and boring.

Instead, here’s a very, very short version.

• House: kind of slow-going since the big remodel in 2008, but some progress has been made
• Job: very very stressful for a while, now much much better (whew)
• Health: mostly good (cancer still gone, nothing else major going on), but the last two winters have been very hard
• Cats: Toby just turned 15 (yesterday!) and has been having some health issues that we’re still working through; we got the kittens you saw in yesterday’s post last December
• Family: Mom moved back to California and my aunt Patti is looking to do the same; I’m happy for them, but sad that they’re moving away
• Knitting: I’ve been on a shawl kick all year and haven’t knit much else (six completed, three in progress–I think all else I’ve done in 2010 are a baby sweater–BSJ–and a pair of duck feet)

And I guess, to go along with all the pictures I posted yesterday, I’ll expand on the cat/kitten part tonight.

The kittens are Ross (the dark, fluffy one) and Isaac (the lighter-colored, Siamese mix). Isaac is about 3 weeks older than Ross, but we adopted them together from the Oregon Humane Society in December. Isaac is just over 8 months old and already weighs 11 pounds. Ross is only about 9 pounds, but we think he might end up being the giant of the three because he looks like he’s part Maine Coon. He has giant horseshoe paws, huge ears, and all the fluffiness. He’s also polydactyl, with one extra toe on each of his front paws.

Toby hates them. She co-exists with them fine, though, so long as Ross isn’t trying to get her to play with him. (That’s the main reason we got two at once–so they would play with each other and mostly leave Toby alone.)

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us when we got the kittens (I’m pretty sure they will forever be “the kittens” even when they’re giant old man cats, haha), Toby was developing arthritis. We eventually figured out that she wasn’t just upset by the kittens and got her to the vet–we’ve been giving her fish oil and glucosamine daily since then and it has made a huge difference. Lately she’s been having digestive issues that we are slowly working through and was just recently diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. So she’s on medication for that, and we are currently feeding her a bland food diet of plain poached chicken combined with rice in hopes of solving the digestion problem. (I’ll spare you the gory details of what’s going on with that!) We also have her sequestered in the bathroom right now which she isn’t all too happy about, but she’s actually handling it pretty well. And we think she’s improving, thankfully.

So Toby is getting better (and therefore happier), and the kittens–when we aren’t having to tell them to get off tables or stop scratching things–are a joy to have around.

And…I’ll leave it at that tonight. More tomorrow.

So…one of my Plurk friends mentioned today that she was doing NaBloPoMo this month and I thought, “Hey, maybe I should do that…” And here I am!

However, my new Sims 3 expansion (Ambitions!) was waiting on the front porch when we got home from work and I, of course, got sidetracked and totally forgot to write anything. Oops. So how about a cheater post for tonight? Here are some kitten pictures:

And a bonus Toby picture:

Now I must run off to bed. Next post: with actual words!

Now that I finally have visible progress to show again (oops, just realized I never posted pictures here of the siding without paint–they’re in my flickr!), I thought I’d share a quick picture. It’s not done yet (as you can easily tell if you look at details), but it’s looking really good!

Not sure exactly when it’ll be done, but I think I’ll be able to post some before and after shots next week.

Quick one this morning ’cause I’m running late:

Found a bit of dry rot, which you can see in this shot:

It’s unfortunate, but not unexpected. And if there was going to be dry rot anywhere, that was the most likely place. The rest of the house is clean!

Oh, and here’s the end of day shot from Tuesday (they finished after dark so we didn’t get a picture until yesterday morning):

Okay, gotta go to work.

Yesterday I actually got home at a semi-reasonable time after my every-other-week LONG work day. Only 10(ish) hours! This is what the house looked like when I got here:

It was dark by the time the crew left, so I don’t yet have a picture with all the pretty sheeting up. In fact, I haven’t even seen it yet! We’re going to grab a shot on the way to the car…when hopefully the sun will be up.

There was a bit of a problem with the electricity yesterday. Basically, they broke it. It isn’t entirely their fault because the house is very old and the wire/conduit/meter base were all old too. But it was working fine until they snagged the wire somehow and pulled it out. Oops.

So the house was without power for a large chunk of yesterday and they had to call an electrician out to fix it. It was all fixed by the time I got home, and now we have a pretty new meter base:

Today is my birthday and I’m celebrating by:

1) Having a job interview (whose bright idea was that? oh yeah; mine). It’s with a recruiter at my company so shouldn’t be too stressful. Still can’t help the nerves, though.

2) Meeting with the design guy to choose colors for the house. Didn’t realize when we made that appointment that it was on my birthday. Oh well, it’ll be fun anyway.

3) Knitting at Twisted! Due to the other two appointments I won’t be there for a terribly long time, but I’m hoping to escape from work a little early. Hopefully I’ll be there from 3 (or slightly before) until 4:30.

Yesterday, the crew arrived to begin working on our new siding and windows. This is what the side of our house looked like when I got home from work:

And by the time they left for the day:

So exciting! Not sure what we’ll find when we get home tonight.

I’ve been remiss in posting about the swap package I received from Cecilia Kettleburn for the Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap. Here it is, finally:

The yarn Cecilia included is the softest sock yarn I’ve ever felt! Softer than the squishiest merinos even.

It’s kind of chenille-like…but nicer than most that I’ve experienced. It’ll be fun trying it out.

There was a size 2 Addi Turbo, which is awesome because I love them and didn’t have one in that size. She included the book Charmed Knits (as you see in the photo above). I’m really excited about that one, because I’d been hemming and hawing over buying it for ages.

I don’t have a separate shot of the hand-covered blank book, but you can see it in the photo above too. Very pretty! I have to find something special to use it for. Cecilia also made me my very own wand:

I’ve saved the best for last, though. She made me these BEAUTIFUL Ravenclaw (book colors!) stitch markers:

AND a matching bracelet:

Cecilia really did a fantastic job on short notice (my previous spoiler dropped out of the swap fairly late in the process). Thank you, Ceci!

It’s been an interesting week. First, a picture of a pretty pair of glasses:

I’ll explain their significance shortly.

Starting last Saturday, I have been on a bizarre lucky streak the likes of which I’ve certainly never experienced before.

Saturday was my company picnic. The company is known (internally anyway) for being very generous with prizes at the picnics, so we knew a prize raffle was coming. When I arrived, I dropped my two raffle tickets into their respective bins (one of which intriguingly said “silent raffle” on it) and wandered off to enjoy the picnic (and wait for the prize drawing!).

The prizes that were announced at the picnic started at $100–gift cards for all kinds of places like Target, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble…–and went on from there. There was an iPod Nano, a 3-day Avis car rental, a stay at a downtown hotel, and the gift card amounts went up to $200, $250…finally, there was a 42-inch television given away. The other top prize was a $1000 voucher for Delta Airlines. They gave away three of them.

I won one!

So that was pretty neat! I got to work Monday morning and heard people twittering about the picnic and how I was one of the big winners, etc. Pretty soon, we got an email from corporate communications which turned out to be the results of the “silent raffle.” The silent raffle was created so that the prize drawings/announcements wouldn’t go on for hours at the picnic, and included all of the smaller prizes. They were all in the $25-50 range (plus I think I saw one that was $75).

I won a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card. [Side note: Remember that book I said I fell in love with at the yarn shop in Lincoln City? I turned right around and ordered it from B&N Monday afternoon. ]

Wow, two raffle prizes! I was really lucky!

Then…today.

I have to backtrack just a bit to something I don’t think I’ve mentioned on my blog. Just before my vacation, I was nominated for a “You ROCK!” prize at work. To get that, you are nominated by someone else at the company. Once they’ve gone through the procedure, you, quite literally, receive a rock. So the two women who nominated me showed up at my desk and gave me a rock and a nice certificate. I thought it was really nice of them to go to the trouble, so I’ve left the rock in a prominent spot on my desk and hung the certificate on my wall. Other than occasionally laughingly showing off my rock, I hadn’t really thought much about it.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to this morning. I showed up (pretty much last) to my department meeting and was surprised to see the two women who’d nominated me and also someone from corporate communications. I had a suspicion that something was up, but had no idea what. Turns out I was chosen as the “You ROCK!” winner for the month of June–and I won a $100 Macy’s gift card. They also took pictures of me, which will appear in posters throughout the company and in the corporate email that goes out every Thursday. I’d seen posters with other winners around, but somehow never really considered that I’d be on one of them! And I had NO idea there was actually a prize involved.

Are you counting? We’re up to three prizes, totaling $1125. But I’m not quite done yet…

This one isn’t so much a prize, but it kind of fits so I’ll mention it anyway. I got back from the meeting just in time to run off to Lloyd Center to meet with a few knitters at lunchtime. Just as I was about to walk away from my desk, the phone rang. I picked it up and Jessica, one of the knitters I was meeting, said, “Hey, I have a 2-for-1 coupon for Jamba Juice! Want one?”

So–free Jamba Juice for lunch today.

Incidentally, every person I’ve related these events to so far has said something along the lines of, “You need to play the lottery this week!”

Nik and I had been amusing ourselves with this idea off and on today. (I’m a former math teacher and we’re both very rational people, so the whole idea of “cashing in” on a string of luck is pretty funny to us.) Nik even went so far as to speculate that I’d actually USED UP my good luck and it was over now, so no need to buy a lottery ticket.

When Nik picked me up this evening, we were both hungry and I didn’t feel like going home and cooking so we went out to dinner. We went to Micky Finn’s, a pub a mile or so down the street from us. Wednesday is Pint Night and the rep from Blue Moon (tonight’s featured brewery) was going around handing out raffle tickets to everyone and told us there’d be a drawing in around half an hour.

This, of course, caused further discussion of the whole luck thing. (Nik is wondering if there’s a conservation of luck in force, and if so, who is having a really bad luck week to balance out my good luck?)

I’m sure you can guess by now what happened.

The Blue Moon rep gave out 6-8 prizes and kept calling out ticket numbers…nope, not mine. Not Nik’s. Eventually, Nik made some crack about, “Well, this is proof.” (We’re still not sure what it was proof OF, but whatever ).

Numbers were called, people picked their prizes…then he announced that the next would be the last one for this drawing. (I’m pretty sure they do multiple drawings through the night.)

Guess whose number was the last one called?

That’s where those pilsner glasses, pictured above, came from.

Crazy, huh?