Incroyable!!

*We'll be gone next week, so there won't be any posts. Sorry. We'll be back around the 8th. Patience, young jedi.*

I just KNOW how excited you all are that the Tour de France is starting tomorrow, July 1st. I also KNOW that your excitement about the Tour is only second to your excitement about the World Cup semi-final matches that are coming this weekend (Go England!!).

We began watching "Le Tour" back in, like, 2000 or 2001. Lance had already won a couple of times by this point. It was out of pure curiousity that we tuned in to OLN to see the race. Not really knowing anything about the sport of international cycling, we were immediately hooked. The event is grueling, to say the least. These guys race for at least 23 days straight (with only 2 rest days for travel purposes). They race flats, they race up the Pyrenees mountains, they race up the famed peaks of the Alps, they race eachother and they race the clock. It might not be the most interesting thing to watch when they are out riding a 100+ mile flat course, but when they get into the mountain stages.....it's pure drama. Last year, we decided to travel to Paris for the finale of the Tour. It was a spectacular sight to see at least 100 cyclists fly by at about 30+mph on the cobblestones of the Champs Elysees.

This year, 2006, was to be the first year without Lance. It was going to be a very exciting race for us Tour fans. Huzbend and I have picked our favorites over the years and now they were going to have to fight it out for the honor of wearing the Yellow Jersey. That was until this morning, when the news hit.....

"TOUR DE FRANCE BANS TOP RIDERS FROM RACE"
"DOPING SCANDAL STRIPS TOUR OF FAVORITES"

WTF!?!?!?!? Je ne comprends pas!!!!!

How freakin' disappointing. ALL of the favorites, and I do mean ALL, were implicated in a wide range blood doping scandal that started with a doctor in Spain. The Spanish Cycling Federation recently released a list of cyclists supposedly linked to this doctor. As a result of this, even though they are supposedly clean now, the riders will not be allowed to compete in the Tour because of their potential involvement. Some of these guys have already raced, and WON, this season. In order for them to do this, they would have to have been clean when they raced.

I was really looking forward to watching this year. It was going to be a fight to the finish between these guys. They've been drooling over the top spot for, like, 7 years now. It was their chance. I mean, I do understand the teams had to take action against the implicated riders. The teams have sponsors that they need to please. The sponsors don't want to be connected to illegal play. I see their point, I really do. But, it just stinks for the fans.

So, this means NO:
Jan Ullrich - my favorite rider. He's been on the podium at the finale almost everytime we have watched. He was the main competitor of Lance and this was gonna be HIS year!
Ivan Basso - Italian hunk rider. He was to duel it out with Ulle.
Alexander Vinokourov - had to drop out of the race 'cause you need at least 6 on your team to race. 5 of his guys were kicked out due to the scandal. That means he has no team.

There are still some guys that we can root for though. There's a crop of American riders to keep your eyes on. Now that these other guys are out, they have a great chance of being top rider. I'm sure you'll hear about Levi Leipheimer of Gerolsteiner, Floyd Landis of Phonak, Bobby Julich and Dave Zabriskie of CSC, and also there's Big Georgie Hincapie of Team Discovery.

Oh yeah, and don't forget about this up and coming new rider from Team Scallywag. He's sure to show us a good bit of riding:

T.P.

I swear, I must go through a roll of toilet paper a day now. It's like I pee every 20 minutes. Just thought I'd share. Oh, the joys of pregnancy.

I also had to spend a good portion of last night sitting upright to sleep. Well, I kinda slumped over a little onto my folded body pillow on the couch. But, really it was just like sitting up. The little bugger wouldn't stop beating me up. It felt like she was grabbing on to one side of my pelvic bone then putting her little tootsies up on to the other side and pushing outwards as hard as she could. Not to comfortable. So, I moved from my side to an upright position. Take that, baby! I find that she's not as powerful that way. Sometimes, I wish I could see what was really going on in there. She'd probably stick her little tongue out at me.

The inspection of our house back east was done today. The real estate lady told me the same thing she told me when the last inspection was done, "I think it went well." The people actually picked an inspection company that hires actual engineers. I guess it's more expensive than your normal inspection because they can actually tell you if the house will fall apart. We'll have to assume that they found the same things that the last inspection did. Their written statement is due by Sunday the 2nd. So, we have to wait until then. I guess the people also had other contractors giving them estimates on painting and adding landscaping. Hmmmmm. Where did they get the money to do that if they couldn't afford to come up to our price???? Losers. Whatever. I guess as long as they are not getting these estimates to add to an obscene list of demands for us to pay for (like the last butt-munchers), I'm okay with it.

We'll be heading back east this coming Saturday to meet the packers and movers. We'll be hanging for the week and will be able to meet up with family and the like. Should be a good, albeit hectic time. The problem is that I will now have to go through the whole saying goodbye thing AGAIN. It was bad enough the first time. When we left the last time, I was under the assumption that by the time we found a place and could move our stuff I wouldn't be able to fly. It really was the last time I would have to see the house and my peeps. I had a nice little breakdown the day that we left. Now, I have to go back and say goodbye again. I wonder if it will be easier leaving when the house is empty? This will also be the LAST trip we take as a couple. Next time people see us we'll be a family. How freakin' weird is that?

Hard Core Kung-Fu Traning

So, it's 8:17pm and we're watching SpongeBob. I'm not quite sure why we're watching the Sponge. It's just..........on.

This weekend we had a "heat wave" here in the Seattle area. Watch out! Hot temps are a' flarin'! COME ON. We've had temps above 85 for like 2 or 3 days in a row. That is so NOT a heat wave. Today, the old high temp record was 88 degrees. It was set back in 1987. We broke that record with a 90 degree tempurature. I guess I'm just used to weather extremes. Back east we routinely had stretches of 90 plus degree weather in summer with HIGH humidity. There wasn't even any humidity today. It was just hot. Northwesterners sure are weird. Can't wait to see what happens in winter around here....

Saturday, we ventured to the REI Flagship store to pick up a race packet for huzbend. The place was frickin' huge. Definitely worthy of "flagship" status. Not only did they have everything and anything that an outdoorsy type of person would want or need they also have, like, a 65 ft. tall freestanding indoor climbing wall. Impressive. Hey, did you know that the time on Mt. Everest is 45 minutes off of the world clock? I don't know if this is right. I can't seem to find anywhere online that says what time it is on top of Mt. Everest. But, they had swiss army clocks around the outside of the REI building marking the time at different natural wonders throughout the world. I'm just assuming they know what they're talking about.

Speaking of natural wonders, Mt. Rainier is awesome. Since it's been clear for the past couple of days, when you drive around on the highways you can see it looming in the distance. The thing is huge (about 14,000 ft high). It's really cool to be driving around on a 90 degree day and see this monolith in the distance completely covered in snow. Okay, so it's a active volcano. I can live with that as long as its pretty.

Sunday, huzbend and a team of 4 other guys competed in a 100 mile race. The race was split into 5 legs: 23 mile mtn. bike, 50 mile road cycle, 12 mile kayak, 13.5 mile run, 6 mile sprint. Huzbend, of course, did the 50 mile cycle. His team did pretty well coming in somewhere in the middle of the pack. The entire race took them 9 hours and 22 minutes to complete.

Huzbend was totally worthy of the polka dot King of Mountains jersey (Tour de France reference) he was wearin', in that he told me that he ate up those nasty northwest hills. Problem was that one of the spokes on his back wheel came loose during the ride. This caused the wheel to "come out of true" (that's cycle-speak for wobbly wheel). This, in turn, caused his back brake to rub on the rim and remain "on" throughout the race. Bummer. I guess it could be considered, like, hard core training. Like, kung-fu guys that train with wet gis so that when they take them off they can move that much faster. Yeah, just like that.

Anyways, watching these guys depressed me even more than the whole elliptical machine debackle. I mean, here they are pushing themselves hard for hours at a time, getting all dehydrated and sweaty. All I did was walk from one start/finish line, drive a few miles to the next start/finish line and then walk some more. You would have thought that I ran a damn marathon! I was all red-faced, tired, sweaty and grumpy.

Well, if I think about it along the kung-fu line, I should be able to kick major ass when I offload this extra 30 somethin' pounds. You just watch. Then I can train like Luke Skywalker did on Dagobah. I'll just carry baby around the swamp in a backpack doin' my flips and sprints and other Jedi madness. Ha-HA! Watch out world.

I think there's something wrong with me....

Molasses & Sweat

Tomorrow marks week 33 of my pregnancy. I have to say that so far this last trimester has been the hardest. I guess that's what I should've expected. It's what all the books told me. Really, it has nothing to do with the stress of current events and everything to do with body changes.

The first trimester was pretty decent. I had some issues with a yucky feeling tummy, but that was about it. I never once tossed my cookies. I came close a couple of times, but I was able to fight it. I was also overcome with overwhelming tiredness at times and losses of emotional control. I got to go to DisneyLand. I cried through the fireworks display. "These are the best fireworks....EVER" -sniffle-. No sweat.

The second trimester was okay too. I felt really good. Yucky tummy went away and appetite soared. I was putting away more food than huzbend for a change. The tiredness started to subside and I was able to NOT cry over the stupid baby commercials I would catch on tv. You know the ones..."Having a baby changes everything". I don't remember the product just the commercial. It was a mom bathing her baby in a sink. Got me everytime. Belly was growing, but not substantially. Baby was movin', but just little kicks and hiccups. Awwwww, how cute!

Then, dunnnnnn-dun-duuuuuunnnnnn! The third trimester comes along and kicks my ass. Dudes. I am SO not kidding. It felt like as soon as I hit month number 7 my belly grew exponentially. Like, overnight even. I can't sleep through the night without having to pee every 2 hours or without having some whacked out dream about elephant shaped trees that come to life and kill people. I'm starving hungry all the time, but if I eat too much then my belly pops out. I bang my belly on everything - counters, chairs, when shutting doors etc. I can't sit down the way I want to anymore without it taking me a half hour to lift myself off the couch. I also think that the baby has honed her ninja skillz and is now working on perfecting the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.

The reason I bring this all up is because for the past 2 or 3 weeks I have been getting slower and slower and s-l-o-w-e-r. I work out just about every day of the week. Mondays is prenatal yoga day. Tuesday-Saturday are aerobic workout days (with some light weights mixed in). Sunday is a pregnancy toning workout with a chick from Cirque. Every week, I use the treadmill for my aerobic workouts and every week I have had to slow it down. It's pretty annoying. Usually, it's a strong feeling that I'm going to pee my pants that makes me slow up. Ahhhh, how nice it would be to run again. To ride a bike again. To not walk like a penguin!

Dear readers, I may be forced to use the elliptical machine. The woosiest of all aerobic workout machines (sorry to all you elliptical fans out there). I got on the ellip machine last week and I was able to workout the whole 30 minutes without feeling a loss of bladder control fast approaching or having baby dancing a jig. Maybe the walking is just becoming too jarring. I don't know. I can't believe that I may have to use this machine daily. What a LOSER I have become. Oh baby, you just wait until your old enough to hear what I had to go through for you. What a travesty.

Today, I tried the treadmill again. It went okay. There was a guy on the elliptical so I couldn't use it. I was thinking that when he got off that I could hop on for the rest of my workout time. Ummmmm, can you say EWWWWWW? He got off the thing and there were puddles of sweat on the floor and the pedals. There were streaks of sweat down the arms of the thing and it was splattered all over the console. It was totally disgusting. Of course, since the gym is free to people in the complex there are NO towels or paper towels to be found. It just dried there. Totally pukey. I guess I shouldn't really complain. At least he didn't smell.

News on the "house" front. Today we signed another binder to sell our house back east. The price was, mmmmm, okay. It was a bit lower than we had wanted, but they offered to close at the end of July. This would mean that we would only have to pay that extra mortgage thingie for, like, a few weeks. This would save us enough money to make the deal worthwhile. We went for it. Now, we just have to wait for them to have their inspection and deal with the consequences of that. We've already fixed up the bum septic system so that shouldn't (fingers crossed) be an issue. They'll probably have the inspection sometime next week and then we'll know the official results about a week after that. Hopefully, there will be NO more negotiating for price. A girl can dream, can't she?

This is where we live....for now....

Nestled at the foot of a small mountain range lies an inconspicuous little apartment community. As recently as a month ago, we were lucky enough to establish ourselves, albeit temporarily, at this ideal location.

Conveniently located close to a major east to west running highway, the city of Seattle is a short 20 minute drive away. The "Evil Empire", about 30 minutes north by backroads. The scenery is verdant. Trees cover most of the area with snow-capped mountains looming in the distance. A huge lake is very close by with a multitude of parks to enjoy on weekends. The apartment complex is surrounded by million dollar homes and is nestled on the side of one of the lower altitude mountains. Located nearby, there is a small grocery store containing over-priced goods, a few artistically themed stores, a salon, and the requisite Starbucks. These are all within 5 minutes walking distance.

Please take a minute (or an hour) to find the nearest parking spot. Our little slice of heaven is located in the back of the complex. We are lucky enough to be situated next to a basketball hoop, a workout room and pool area. Huzbend and I find this to be very convenient.
Our first room is the TV/living room. This is the couch that I have been forced to sleep on due to my hip hurting "issues". It is a nice couch to sleep on, but I can't say much about the sit-factor. The couch that we own back east kicks its ass. Yes, that's a glider in the background. A nice hand-me-down from some local friends. It's super comfortable. You'll also notice a bear in the foreground (no, I was not referring to huzbend). He's a cute gift from mom-in-law (again, not talking about huzbend). It is actually a footstool to keep my tootsies comfi. Bear has got a twin bro back east. I can't wait for them to be reunited.
If you turn around 180 degress you will face our kitchen. Small and sucky it is. As far as its suckiness, the picture just doesn't do it justice.
You're now veiwing our dining/cycle training room. We eat dinner at the table and about an hour later it turns into the "Chamber of Suffering". The mat on the floor is to keep the carpet from being ruined by the blood, sweat and tears of the ultimate indoor bike workouts that take place at least 4 times a week.
If you walk down a short hallway you'll find a second bedroom currently occupied by empty boxes, baby gear and moldy-pot plants. The clay pots are damp from watering and the sun isn't strong enough to dry them out. Thus, mold and mushrooms have started growing. No joke. The bathroom is also back here.

Next is the main bedroom. This is where you will find what I affectionately call "The Rack". It is the most horrible mattress that I have ever had the displeasure of sleeping on. Besides it being hard, it is very VERY small. I cannot wait to be rid of the damn thing. The lump in the bed is a body pillow, silly people.
That concludes our tour ladies and gentlemen.

But wait! All is not well in our happy little community! Recently, a serious threat has been discovered in the area.

Beware, my fine friends! You could be walking back to your humble abode enjoying your recently purchased Starbucks Frappacino when, suddenly, you are hit from behind by a large figure. Bore to the ground by its weight, your Frappacino flies out of your hand spilling its contents slowly through the plastic cup cover. You struggle to get onto your back. But, as soon as you do, you feel what seem to be sharp claws pinning your shoulders to the ground. You feel hot metallic breath on your face and next the perplexing feeling of liquid being released from your neck. The last thing you see, as your head is released and flops uncontrollably to the side, is your overpriced coffee mixing with a brownish-red liquid.

To be sure that this does not happen to you, please follow the easy to read guidelines below. Please feel free to click on this image to get a better view.Enjoy your visit!

Here we go again.....

There was another offer put in on our house back east. It was another low-ball offer. Come on, people! SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!

This time instead of saying no right off the bat, we countered just 5K lower than our asking price. So, now we have to wait for them to come back, IF they come back. I hate waiting. We gave them our counter at about 3:30ET. I want an answer NOW, dammit. This whole 3 hour time difference is a pain in the ass. Living on the east coast, you just take for granted that you are the first in the nation as far as the time thing goes. All the damn networks program for the east coast. For example, ESPN usually only lists out the Eastern starting times for the World Cup games. That means that I have to do subtraction to figure out when they are on. How dare they make me think. How DARE they make me USE math. Bastards.

Anyways, I went back to the park yesterday for some more relaxing and reading. Nice, isn't it? I did see a lot more hawks/eagles, herons and the like. Got the crap scared out of me by a duck as well. I didn't think that they could be so loud or, for that matter, so sneaky. He must have been trying to polish up his mad crazy ninja skillz. It's cool.

Sitting on the ground on a towel is not a very comfortable position anymore. I was only able to sit for about an hour before I had to get up and leave. Oh well. In about a month we should have our camping chairs and then I'll be good to go.

Oh yeah, I made a friend while I was there too. Check him out.....
Today, huzbends software product group had a picnic. The weather was really nice and the food was FREE. There ain't nothin' like free vittles. The best part for me was the Coldstone Creamery ice cream sundae. This was only the second time in my life that I had had Coldstone Creamery and boy, was it GOOOOOOOD.

The worst part for me was that I could not participate in any of the myriad of sports they had going on because of my "delicate" condition. Ugh. The closest I got was kicking the soccer ball back into play and throwing the cricket practice balls back to the fielders. Yes, you read that right. Cricket. There were two cricket games going on at the picnic. It's a pretty complicated game and I am not sure that I actually understood what we learned about it. All I know is that the game can last 5 days. You have to get 10 outs before the teams switch from batting to fielding. If you get, like, 500 runs, you can just stop the inning early and go play the field. The players play ALL day and take breaks to eat lunch and have tea.

In the middle of the picnic a helicopter landed across from us in the middle of the softball fields. Five minutes after the engine cycled down, guess who ran across the field and got in? Yes. His Majesty, the King of all Nerd-dom. Now THAT doesn't happen everyday. He waved to everyone before he got in. I couldn't resist and waved back.

It's good to be the King.

Poopy and the World Cup

If there is one good thing to say about the people backing out of the purchase of our house back east, it's that the inspection they had let us know of a potential problem with our septic system. Okay, so I'm not so sure it was a good thing to find out. I mean, we have to pay to have it fixed. But, I guess that alleviates any responsibility we might have were we to sell the house without knowing about the problem. This is one less thing the buyers can ask us for money to fix when it comes to closing the deal. I don't know.

Anyways, I had a guy go out and inspect the tank and pump it out. It was completely full and we hadn't even been there for the last month. Our leach field was dry and seemed to be in good working order. I guess that's a good thing as it would have cost, like, ten thousand to have a new field put in. They think that it is a problem with a pipe leading from the tank to the field. So, I set up an appointment for them to fix the problem along with adding a ballast and an effluent filter to our existing tank. If you are curious, there are plenty of diagrams on the net to show you what I'm talking about (Yes, I did internet research on septic tank designs. I am THAT cool.). They'll take care of it next week and then we will have to shell out the dough, or should I say MORE dough. UGH.

It is yet to be seen if potential buyers will see this as a good or bad thing. Some might be scared off by the fact that we HAD a problem, even though it's been fixed. Some might see it as a positive in that they are getting an "updated" system. Who knows. I know that I would be a bit nervous if there were issues with the septic. I mean, who wants a problem with poop. There could be a lot of worse things wrong with a house, but when there is the potential for poop problems it takes on a whole new significance. Not that this needs pointing out, but not many people enjoy encounters with poop. Just ask huzbend who is obsessing about baby diapers and his having to change them.

Speaking of obsessions. I love the World Cup. I am completely addicted. I have watched almost every game that has been on. Okay, so I have NOTHING else to do, but come on!! Even the games that you think are gonna be boring, like Saudia Arabia vs. Tunisia, turn out to stay exciting all the way through the 90 odd minutes. It's hard not to get caught up in the excitement even if you aren't really rooting for either team. One day huzbend might come home to find that I've painted my face green, am sporting a green and yellow afro wig and have also decorated my prego belly as a soccer ball. CRAZY, I tell you! "O-laaaaaaaaaaay, O-lay, O-lay, O-laaaaaaaaay!"

Pretty much all of the games that I have watched have been excellent. Except, Team USA. What is up with them? I know they played a couple of days ago and this is old news, but they got demolished by the Czech Republic. Now, the Czech Republic is supposedly, like, number 2 in the world. NO EXCUSE. The US team looked like they had each smoked 2 pounds of pot before stepping onto the field. I think that if we fielded 11 pregnant women they would have been more effective. Okay, so maybe not. I'm just sayin'.... They play Italy on Saturday. I'll watch, but I'm skeptical. I might just have to catch a flight to Germany and boot up.

Pork Log

Damn! Pork log is expensive. Yes, this is my life now. I obssess about the cost of pork log.

I just had a thought. Many of you probably don't know what the heck pork log is. Pork log is what we call pork tenderloin. It looks like a log made out of pork. I'll tell you one thing, it does not look very appetizing. This is usually our Sunday meal. We eat it along with broccoli and sweet potatos. I have to say that the sweet potato is my favorite part of the meal with the broccoli coming in second. Alas, the sacrifices I must make for a protein serving.

Anyways, grocery shopping has now become one of my "jobs". Because of our current situation (the whole two mortgage thing) we are trying to save money wherever we can. I have become a "coupon queen". I have been visiting competing grocery stores to see which one I can get a better deal at. Also, thanks to advice from my friend Sharon, I check online to see what specials are going on at my local stores. So, I make a list of what I need to buy and then I check the specials to see what is on sale. It's very convenient. You don't even have to actually HAVE the coupons with you as they are all linked to your "Preferred Shopper" Card.

I have just realized that many of you probably know this stuff already. You're probably laughing at me. "You've never done the grocery shopping?" Well, I never had to do the food shopping. That was huzbends domain. He does all the cooking around here, so it only made sense that he did the grocery shopping. But, now that I am office-free, I've taken the reigns. BWA-HA HA HA, his domain no longer, my friends! Don't get all excited, I still do NOT do the cooking. I like to enjoy my dinners. Me cooking would be an exceptionally bad idea.

Well, the dumb pork log is $9.99. That's pretty expensive, I think. This led me to think about the fact that food that is "bad" for you is much cheaper than food that is "good" for you. I mean, I can buy, like, 4 or 5 packs of no-name hotdogs for the price of 1 pork log. Why is that? Well, okay, I know the answer to that. It's more expensive to make things out of quality ingredients. But, I don't want to sacrifice my nutrition because we are trying to save money. It's even the same with brand name cereals. I can buy the cheapie brand of "Toasted O's" instead of Cheerios, but then I get a bit more calories each serving, more sodium and not as many vitamins and minerals. What a dilemma.

Holy Suckage, Batman!

The buyers of our house back east withdrew from the contract. According to them, there was too much involved in making it a 4 bedroom house. Why they weren't looking at 4 bedroom houses to begin with, we will never know. Lame-wads. My anger yesterday was well founded I guess.

Our house should be back on the MLS listings as of tonight or tomorrow. We've lost about 2 weeks. Maybe some good will come out of this. I mean, they had that inspection done, so we know what the potential problem spots are with our property. That means no surprises. We might be able to actually take care of some of those "problems" before someone else makes a bid. That can only help us sell. I'm hoping this time around we can make a bit more money off the sale too. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that we can get it sold in the next 2 to 3 months. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts, positive thoughts....

As far as the house out here, we are still going forward. We don't wanna miss the opportunity on this place. It seems like it's the right place for us. Just enough room, good lookin' neighborhood, and it'll be good feeling for me to have a permanent home set up for the baby. We should be closing on that July 13th.

We'll be back east the first week of July to meet the relocation packers/movers. To tell you the truth, I'm not very excited about the trip back. The problem is that it seems like I have to use the bathroom every 20 minutes nowadays. Not very conducive to long airplane rides. I asked the relocation people to try their best to sit me on an aisle seat, as well as sitting me next to huzbend. The last two times we flew out here, huzbend and I had to sit apart - one seat behind the other. I'm hoping that since I gave them almost a months notice that they can hook us up. Might be tough though since it is so near the July 4th holiday. I'm interested in seeing the packers come in and pack up all of our stuff in one day. That is going to be so weird. At least we don't have to do it. Yippee!

As much as I am dreading the financial burden of carrying the two places, I am really looking forward to having a home again. I also can't wait to have our STUFF again. I want my bed back, along with my pillows. I want my couch back. I want my washer and dryer back. It will be good to be surrounded with familiar things again. It will feel more like HOME.

Welp, that post was a downer huh? It's kinda hard to be upbeat when things seem like they are about to get REALLY complicated. I'm just going to have to go with the flow. Take it one bit at a time. What I should really do is stop reading my pregnancy books about labor. It's not helping the worry factor at all. Let me tell you, that is some freaky sh**. I think it will only be recreational reading for a while for me. Happy Happy Joy Joy.

I think a Dairy Queen Monster Cookie Blizzard would help....or some pizza.
: )

Let's Puuuuhhhlayyyyyy Baaaalllllll!

It's negotiation time. One of THE best parts about selling and/or buying a home. NOT.

Last week the inspection was done on our house back east. We had to wait until yesterday to get the reply from the buyers. This would list out their issues with the house and what we would have to repair or compensate in order to get them to continue with the deal.

In a word, the list was ri-dic-u-lous.

They started off the document by saying some such crap like, "thank you for letting us into your beautiful home". Then they went right into tearing that same beautiful home apart. Bastards.

• Radon in the air was above the "educated" level (whatever that means). It was below 4.0, which according to my research is the limit recommended by the EPA. But, that wasn't good enough. They want it fixed.
• We accidently wrote on our house disclosure that our septic tank was 1500 gallons. It was actually 1250. Our bad. They want to add another tank. On top of that, the tank is totally full. There might be a problem with drainage into the leach field. They want that fixed too.
• Grading on our land is bad. The yard slopes towards the house instead of away. They want that fixed.

Then there were a slew of other issues that the buyers kindly said they would take care of. That is, only after they came up with an astronomical estimate of what it would cost THEM. I guess this was their attempt at consoling us that they could have asked for much more, but they were nice people and would fix a lot themselves. Ugh. Don't make me puke.

Needless to say the amount they wanted as compensation was on the extreme end.

Being the owner of the house is hard. When someone says that there is something wrong, you almost feel protective. Like it's your child or something. It's really hard not to get mad. And, I'll tell you, that was my first reaction. I wanted to punch something.

But, being the logical person I am (okay, well sometimes logical), I decided to call the contractors that had given them estimates and also did internet research on the problems that they had listed out.

We decided today to offer them half of their requested amount. Now, it's time for the waiting game. Will they try to re-negotiate, will they accept, will they reject? If they reject, then we put it back on the market. It'll be tough doing the two mortgage thing, but we don't want to lose our house here. It's too perfect. So, that is the house news. Not so good, I guess. But don't fret, patient readers, it will all work out in the end . Hakuna Matata.

Now for some not so serious stuff....

Tuesday I went to a nearby park to relax, eat dried apricots and read a book. The park itself was pretty big with two beaches on a big lake. The coolest part was that in a huge tree overlooking the lake were 3 or 4 hawks (I think they were hawks). All I know was that they were frickin' big. I even got to watch one swoop down into the lake, grab a fish and bring it back into the tree for lunch. It was straight up Discovery Channel. The not-so-cool part was that I got sunburnt. On one leg. How does that happen? I was sitting in full on sun and the only part of me that got burnt was my left thigh. That's it. Whacked.

Here are some observations I have made about Northwest living:

• People drive slow. They actually drive the damn speed limit. Who DOES that? Really.
• During rush hour, there are stop lights that let one car on the highway at a time. I guess this alleves back up on the entrance ramps. I just see it as a chance to drag race my Xterra.
• The news is on ALL day. The local networks have news on just about every hour during the day. It's ridiculous. I'm starting to think that they make up news.
• Stores are impossible to find. They are always tucked away in mini-malls that are set back from the main street. You drive around in circles for, like, a half hour looking like an idiot while you scan your surroundings for Radio Shack. I think the locals get a good laugh from this. Sometimes, I think it might be easier to find Big Foot than to find the stupid grocery store.

You want-a da belly, you got-a da belly.....

6-6-06

Okay. Enough already. All this talk about the date is driving me crazy. I know that I am just jumping on the bandwagon by also talking about it, but I can't help it. All I heard on the news today was "666, the number of the beast", "the number of satan", "pregnant women are changing their delivery dates in order to avoid the stigma attached with these numbers", "some moms are not allowing their kids to go to school", "armaggedon is coming, beware."
UGH.
There are lots of other things to remember about June 6th:

• The landing at Normandy
• The first Drive-In movie theatre opened in NJ
• Sandra Bernhard was born
• I started officially dating huzbend 17 years ago

Yes, 17 years. Hmmmph. That is a long-ass time. You would think that we would be sick of eachother already. I can't say that's happened. Actually, I really can't see ever getting bored with the man. Especially as long as he keeps up that road cycling so that I can look at him in those tight spandex-like biking outfits. Okay, sorry...T.M.I.

On to the weekend.

The weather was decent. On Saturday, we decided to head into Seattle to check out Pikes Place Market. I tell you, this place is a food lovers dream. Anything you can think of that you would want to eat is there somewhere. Finding it is the issue. The place is so old and winding that it's easy to get lost. I had a piroshky - a russian stuffed pastry. Man, it was good. Huzbend had a tamale. The place kinda reminded me of Faneuil Hall in Boston. It had the same type of feel with all the stalls about...but it was 3 times as big and had a lot more food. You can also have most of the food that you find there shipped all around the world in case you are just visiting. Oooo, who's that hunk in the green shirt?
After our jaunt through the market, we decided to walk up to the Seattle Center. Home of the famous Space Needle. We had been told by the locals NOT to go up to the top of the needle. It was a waste of money. We took their advice. I did snap a pic of it, though. I think it's better that we didn't. I'm thinking when we get visitors they'll want to do this. This way, it'll be fresh for us.After taking a rest on a bench at the cheezy kids amusement park located right underneath the needle, we decided to head over to the Pacific Science Center. They had many exhibits about all sorts of things: the human body, how things work, the history of 3-D, naked mole rats (boy, they're ugly), dinosaurs, solar system and bugs. All the normal science-type things. I did find out that pregnant women should not do "smell" tests at Science museums. They have definite puke potential. Also, at the museum they had an seperate special exhibit called "Game On." It was about the history of video games - from the beginning to the recent releases (sponsored by a local game design school and, of course, Microsoft Xbox360). There were over 100 games to play. We spent a good hour and a half just playing games. It rocked. I even got up enough nerve to play a karaoke game. I sang a Tom Jones classic, "It's Not Unusual", in honor of Carlton Banks (if you don't know Carlton, you can google him).

After all this, I was pretty exhausted. We still had to walk all the way back to our parking garage. On the way, we happened upon another Seattle landmark. The Super Elephant Car Wash. I don't really know what the significance of this landmark is besides it being really cute.
Sunday was a non-event day for me. It was rainy. I stayed in, but huzbend braved the weather for his first long-distance outdoor ride in this area. He got lost. He had to stop for directions. Also, on this trip he almost got decapitated by a tree overhanging the road. In order to miss the tree branch, he had to swerve. Because the road was wet, he wiped. It was his first official wipe out. I didn't know if I should tell him I was proud that he is now a "tested" cyclist or tell him to make sure to clean the road rash with soap and water. The Mom instincts are creeping in already.

That's it for now. That was a huge post. I'll leave the house drama update for another day.

Some Pictures...

I've been getting requests for pictures.
Here you go!
Pic #1: This is Mt. Rainier from the air. Taken on a clear day on our first trip back to the NorthEast.
Pic #2: Driving the backroads. These are the Cascade Mtns. Aren't they gorgeous?
Pic #3: This is Snoqualmie Falls. The picture doesn't do it justice. It really is impressive. You can hike down to the bottom of the falls if you want to get a big closer. The walk down wasn't bad. The walk up, mmmm, not so good.
Pic #4: As the whole world knows (and felt compelled to remind us continuously before we moved here), Western Washington is known for its rainy weather. One of the cool things about all this wetness is the rain forest look it creates. Check out those cool mossy trees.
Pic #5: We made a visit to the Woodland Park Zoo. It was really cool. The animals actually seemed happy. Usually, when we go to a zoo the animals all stare at you as if to say, "Help me." Here's a particularly happy grizzly bear.
Pic #6: They had a "feed the birds" exhibit at the zoo. You know I can't resist those things. I'm such a sucker.
Pic #7: A couple of weeks ago we went along with some friends to hike up a small mountain. By this time I was just about 7 mths prego. Not a wise idea. The payoff was a veiw of some really big mountains and a nice BLT with a side of potato chips for lunch.

More on Apple Crisp

I had to take down the picture of the Apple Crisp. Everytime I looked at it I wanted it and that was not good. Sorry.

It depresses me to know that there are people out in the world that have not experienced the culinary decadence that is Apple Crisp. Okay, so it isn't the most healthy dish on the planet. Well, that is unless you can convince yourself that the apples are a fruit serving, the oats are a fiber serving and I guess the ice cream could be considered dairy.

I've posted a pic for my pal, Sharon. Apple Crisp is kinda like a peice of apple pie that has been disassembled. You've got apple slices, mixed with a caramel/orangy type sauce, with brown sugar/oatmeal crumbles all mixed in. I like mine with extra crumbles. It is best served hot with a heap of vanilla ice cream on the side. YUMMY.

Now on to non-edible business.

My plan for this blog is to update at least 2 to 3 times a week. We'll see how that goes. Today, I'm pretty bored and decided to post something.

We had our new house inspected yesterday. There was nothing huge wrong with the place. Just minor issues that the owners should be able to take care of. It was kinda weird. I liked the place even better this second visit. I started picturing where furniture would go, etc. I can't wait to move in!

As far as our house back east, everything is still in limbo. We are waiting for the buyers to get back to us on the results of that inspection and if there is anything that we need to fix. So, the waiting game we must play. I think their deadline is next Wednesday. The only thing I have heard so far about the inspection is that our septic tank is full. We just had it pumped in April. What is up with that? It might be a clogged pipe or all the rain that has been falling. I guess we'll find out.

Many of you have heard about my recent hip pain. I thought that it might just be the extra weight forced upon me by pregnancy. Or maybe it was that other pregnancy super-power know as Elasti-Joints. It was neither. I've figured out what it is. It's the damn awful mattress that we have been forced to sleep on in our temp location. The mattress feels like it was made by the Slate Rock & Gravel Company. Yabba-dabba-OUCH. Okay, so that was an obscure reference. Anyways, on the advice of huzbend I tried sleeping on the couch and I have to say that my hip does not hurt at all and I am actually getting sleep. This is both good news and bad news.

Good News: I sleep without pain.
Bad News: It's very lonely on the couch.

"Hee-May"

Well, here it is.

I've broken down and started a blog. I've been sending so many emails back and forth to friends and family that I can't even keep track of my conversations anymore! I'm hoping that by upkeeping this blog I can keep everyone informed and happy. I can even post pictures too.

Don't worry, I'll keep emailing. Really, I will. It's just that I've been sending out, like, 6 emails with the same info. It just seems to make more sense to have everyone come to a central location to get their fix.

As for the name "Hime", it means "Princess" in Japanese. The pronunciation is above. It's not that I think I'm a princess or anything of the sort. I am so totally not.

Not that everyone will know what I'm talking about, but you can "google" this or look it up on Wikipedia if you want. When I was a kid, I watched a cartoon named "Battle of the Planets". There was a character named "Princess". She kicked major butt. She was an explosives expert, she flew the "Phoenix" super jet, she had a yo-yo as a weapon, she drove a super-cool mecha motorcycle and yet she had time to put on her bell-bottom pin striped pants and disco dance in the opening credits. She rocked. Corny as it may sound, she was one of my early heroes.

"Hime" just seemed a much cooler name than "Princess" though, so I went with that. They always talk about keeping your anonymity online. I'm gonna try my best. I guess I will have to pick nicknames for people around me too. I'll have to get creative.

As for the web address, anyone who knows me knows that my #1 favorite dessert is apple crisp. I have to say that my huzbend makes the best damn apple crisp I've ever had. Sorry, Moms and HoJo franchises out there.

Good goin'. Now I want apple crisp. Jeez.