Worst Blogger

I am the worst blogger.

Since my last post I got a new phone, instagram launched for Android, I spent a week in New York  with Lindsay and saw 9 shows on/off Broadway, we had our 3rd Annual Glee mob, my birthday and Easter have come and gone, and my uncle unexpectedly passed away.

Now the spring and summer are zooming by, and I'm actively planning my next vacation - over a week in Disney World with my mom.  We haven't been to Disney World since my high school dance team performed there in '99.

Other things that have happened....

My aunt is in town having knee surgery...my family took our first ever portrait of all four of us together...I got a Kindle Fire - thanks to an Amazon refurbished deal plus some money from the Easter Bunny.  I actually like it.

Oh, and I was pre-approved for a mortgage.  The second I decided to buy a condo, none are on the market.  I'm holding out for the perfect one, which is good because I waver daily on whether buying is a good idea.

This May is a million times calmer than last May....when I was in Chicago, Disneyland, Yakima and Sitka, but I'm feeling stressed.

I want a staycation.  I want to do spring cleaning and catch up on all of the books I want to read.

My goal for the rest of the year is to be present.  Sometimes I'm so busy I forget.

Thankful Thursday

On Tuesday night I started getting a headache. I stopped it from becoming a full fledged migraine, but it still lasted for about 24 hours straight.  This means of course that I was on Advil all day and that I didn't get anything done on Wednesday night except sleep.  Oh - and finish Happy Accidents, Jane Lynch's memoir.  (Interesting read, highly recommend!)

I'm trying to not turn on the heat in my apartment anymore.  I suspect that's contributing to my headaches...the dry air causing dehydration - I'm sure it's not helping.

Today, I didn't have a headache anymore...and I am incredibly thankful for that!

Thankful Thursday

Much to my old personal trainer's dismay, I have spent most of my life watching Diet Coke prices.  I religiously check the grocery ads each week to see if it's a "Coke Week" or a "Pepsi Week."  Both brands are rarely on sale in the same week.

Back in the day, twice a year - on Christmas and 4th of July - Diet Coke would go on sale for 99 cents a 6-pack.  I remember one year we bought about $100 worth and we built a fort in the garage.  Ahhh, childhood!

The days of 99 cents a 6-pack are long gone, and for a long time, the standard "good deal" was 5 12-packs for $10. 

 I used to think of Diet Coke pricing in terms of a 12-packs, so if there was a sale on 24-packs, I would divide it and think of what it would be for 12 cans.

Unfortunately, a couple of years ago the industry switched to 20-packs instead of 24.  Did they think we wouldn't notice?  Anyway, this made math a lot harder, so since they made the switch, I've started calculating down to the can level.  In case you're wondering, a good deal today is if you can find Diet Coke for around 25 to 27 cents a can.

What does this have to do with Thankful Thursday?

Well, for several weeks, Safeway has been doing special deals on Fridays and Mondays, and surprisingly, one of the days has included a $5 20-pack of Diet Coke.  It became so common for about a month, that I started to think it would always be there and I had no sense of urgency to go buy any.

Then it snowed, and I couldn't get to the grocery store....then the next week I fell asleep early and didn't make it to the grocery store.  I only made it in for 1 of the special $5 days actually....it's quite sad.  Last week, even though the $5 special was gone, there was a decent deal in place and I was running low on DC.  I planned to go the grocery store on Tuesday.  In fact, the next week's grocery ads arrived that day and alerted me to the fact that there would be NO good Coke deals in the coming week, so I definitely needed to make it to the store.

Then of course I fell asleep....and woke up at 11:30pm.

Dragging myself out of bed, I made it to Safeway.

When I got in line to pay for my Diet Coke (+ apples + a lemon + parmesan) at 11:52, there were 4 people in line in front of me.  Why were there so many people at Safeway at midnight!?!?  On a TUESDAY!!!

One guy in front of me must have realized that he didn't have his wallet, because he put all of his items back in his cart, swore, and left his cart by the cashier.

I checked out at 11:58pm - 2 minutes before I would have lost out on getting ANY sort of Coke deal.

Soooo...........

I am very thankful that the man in front of me forgot his wallet. :-)

The Year Is Finally Starting

No, the title of this post has nothing to do with the lunar new year (Go Dragons!) but I do feel like this year is starting its engine.

Maybe it's because the snow has finally melted and we've all crawled out of our snow covered caves.

Maybe it's because we've been rehearsing for a flash mob (which always makes life better).

Maybe it's because Melissa's here and we're planners - so we keep talking about all the things that are coming up.

New York feels like it's right around the corner (it totally is)!!! The dance calendar will be filling up soon too, thank goodness.  Glee rehearsals will start before I know it and so will Dare to Dance.

Glee will be our third annual Glee flash mob.  For more info, check out my 2010 recap.  Sadly, this year it will not be held on my birthday like it has been for the past two years - but that's a good thing, because my birthday is on a Tuesday and that would be silly.  This year the mob is on April 21st, which is fantastic because it's after both Western and Orthodox Easter.  I was very worried I'd have to figure out someway to jump back and forth between Seattle and Portland if it fell on Easter weekend.

(What's that?  You'd like to dance with us this year!?!  Please do! Check out http://mobtheworld.com/mobbers/)

Dare to Dance is a dance showcase that's organized by someone in the FMF (Flash Mob Family).  He did last year in December for his birthday.  The idea being that it would be an opportunity for his friends to choreograph and perform original dance numbers on stage in a theatre with a paying audience.  It turned out to be quite a success, so he's doing it again.  Last year it fell on the same night as my Christmas party, so I didn't participate - but this year it is a spring event, so I will be dancing in one or two numbers.

With D2D in mid March and Glee in mid April, it pretty much means that within a month I should [hopefully] be in constant rehearsals.  I am very much looking forward to this time.  Plus, it means that spring and longer days are on their way. :-)

Expect to hear a lot about dancing in the next few months.

....or maybe you won't.  It's hard to tell.  This is ALMOST the best I've ever done at journaling, but that could change at the drop of a hat.  (Ew, I don't like hats.)

So let me put it this way.  I'll be dancing a lot soon.  You may or may not hear about it.

Photo Friday

Here are three pictures related to the weather we've been having in Seattle:

This was actually on a post next to my parking spot at home.  The writing was facing away from my car.  I wouldn't even have seen it but I walked around the passenger side to get into the trunk.  I think it's fairly new (as in, new vandalism)...but what's interesting is that this appeared BEFORE any of the really bad weather came in.  Whoever wrote it must have known what we were in for.

On Wednesday night, most of Downtown Seattle shut down early.  Jeremy flew into town that day and we met for happy hour to catch up at Sazerac.  Walking over there from work was spooky.  Even though it was 7:30pm, it felt like midnight - EVERYTHING was shut down...............except.......URBAN OUTFITTERS!  They had this sign on their door letting everyone know they were still open for business.  I felt bad for them!

Snow to Ice - Icicles spotted on the way to work.  I really didn't take too many pictures of the snow...mainly because I felt like it was too cold to keep taking off my gloves, but I did stop on the way to work to snap this shot because the icicles were exceptionally pretty (to me).

Thankful Thursday

This week I have been incredibly thankful for two things:

1. That I live close enough to work that I can walk
2. That I didn't lose electricity

We are experiencing a "snow event" here in the northwest.  Typically we see snow a handful of times a year.  Generally it's an inch or two, and it doesn't REALLY stick around.  It may screw up rush up traffic for a day, but usually there's not even enough to close schools.

However, this week Western Washington saw a TON of snow.  My neighborhood had, at one point, around 3 inches (based on my non-scientific estimation).  This IS a lot of snow for where I live, but it didn't feel like a lot to me because other people had SOOOOO much more!!!  A co-worker of mine had about 10 inches of snow in her driveway.  Olympia had around 14 inches at one point.  We are DEFINITELY not used to snow at these amounts.

This brings us to TT #1.  Remember, I live in a city of hills.  It does not take very much to screw up traffic on these hills.  When so many buses are out of service and roads are shut down, it's reassuring to know that I will never be stuck at home or at work because of snow and ice.  My bus routes were actually running pretty well throughout the week, but I did walk a couple of times.  (It's good to have options!)

After our first big day of snow, the temperature dropped and we ended up covered in ice.  Tree snapped and broke from the weight of the ice and fell on power lines - lots of them.  I think at one point there were over 350,000 people without power and lots of people won't have electricity back until this weekend.  Remember, it's REALLY cold, so I'm super thankful that I have not had to deal with losing power this week.

Good night!

My Christmas Decorations Are Still Up

My Christmas decorations are still up...for several reasons.

1. I ALWAYS leave them up until after Russian Christmas.
2. To put them away I need to go to the storage unit.  That is ALL THE WAY down the hall!
3. Putting decorations away is one of those projects that explodes in the process...things get a lot worse before they get better.
4. Because of #3, the entire apartment must be clean before I begin putting away decorations.
5. I want to change the way I'm storing some of my ornaments. Last year I outgrew the 2 Rubbermaid totes I use to store Christmas things in.  I added one, smaller, clear plastic bin for some ornaments, and I think I'd like to add at least one more.  This will free up room in the totes for other things...maybe some holiday dishes.  Anyway, I need to go to The Container Store before I can start putting anything away...can't put things away if I don't have the right containers.
6. They're so pretty!

What I should be doing is at least working on #4. Especially because I have Melissa visiting later this week!  What am I doing instead?  I watched the last half of Julie and Julia on Tivo (as in, I never saw the first half, but came in part way through the other night and decided to hit record).  In true Katrina fashion, I started researching Julia Child and the book while I was watching the movie.  The book Julie and Julia has been sitting here waiting for me to read it for months, but now I know that it's a true story.  Or at least...I'm fairly certain it's a true story (I guess it could be a really well set up fake story).  Apparently, I didn't spend that much time researching.

Ugh - I'm so behind on reading...but that's a different story!

Photo Friday

Photo Friday time!  This is where I post random, unedited pics from my cell phone.

First up - in honor of Friday the 13th:

This is a pin I bought at Disneyland when we were there in May.  I've purchased pins while traveling for a LOT longer than Disney has been on the whole pin trading band wagon.  I'm not into trading, but I like that there are always so many for me to pick from while I'm there.  I like to pick up one or two per trip, so it was fun to come across this limited edition Friday the 13th pin! (I believe Jill and I bought the last two in the store!)

January 7th was Russian Christmas and Erik always hosts a Russian Christmas party that includes a white elephant gift exchange.  My first gift, a Lego torch (as in, flashlight) was stolen, so I brought home this little cactus from Arizona/California instead. (Grown in AZ, purchased in CA.)  It is now living at work.  I'm actually surprised at how "well" this picture turned out.  Pretty vibrant colors for a quick shot  in Erik's living room.

On the day of the Spring Awakening preview, I lost my bus pass.  It's the first time that's ever happened - I used it to go to work, and then when I went home it was gone!  Of course on a night where I was rushing and trying to make it to the preview in time.  I figured the best thing to do was order a replacement right away so I wasn't stuck using REAL MONEY for the bus for very long.  Well, when I ordered my replacement card on that Friday, I was told it could take up to a week to receive it...and it arrived on Monday!!  (Ummm, in case it's not obvious - that's what this picture is - my replacement bus pass.)

There you have it!  You were blown away by these amazing photos, right??  You can't WAIT until next Friday???  Yeah....good luck with that. :-)