Now I know why the bread is always missing

The Closest I Ever Want To Be

Today Jason and Kelsey and I went to the Southcenter Mall to shop for shoes for Jason. We'd never been there before, and it's down near the airport so not close by, but a friend at work said it was pretty nice and had lots of stores, so we decided to try it out.

Jay bought his shoes, we went to Borders and got some books and about 3:00 we were kind of ready to go so we wandered out to the car and took off.

At 3:45, THIS happened.

Holy crap! Turns out the people that were in the mall were like detained and locked down for hours until they were able to leave, not to mention the running and chaos inside.

Thank you Kelsey for being bored and ready to leave, because if you weren't there, I so would have still been in the mall when the shooting happened. Even though it's not like a maniac was loose and shooting up strangers, it's still pretty scary to think about being in a situation like that. I think we'll stick to the malls closer to home from now on!

Sunday eatin'

Since I've started clinicals, we find that we don't have the opportunity to eat together as a family like we're used to doing. We don't get home until 7 pm if Jay picks me up, and I don't get home until 7:30 if I have to take the bus. By that time, Megan is usually either at work or gone out, and Kelsey is about ready for bed.

So we decided that we would go out on Sundays as a family and have either breakfast, lunch or early dinner. We're not setting a time because that's too much pressure so we just let everybody get up when they want and get ready and then we head out. We're taking turns picking the restaurant, with the one rule being that it has to be someplace we have never been to before. That way we get to spend time together and we also get to try the many restaurants available in Seattle instead of eating at the same place over and over again.

Today was my turn, and I picked Lowell's restaurant, which is in Pike Place Market. They have three stories to choose from and the windows face the sound for a great view. Once we got there though, we wound up sitting on the opposite side, on the second story, which overlooked the market proper. It was actually pretty cool because we got to sit there and watch all the people shopping in the market below. I thought it would be a place that Mom would probably enjoy sitting at all day just to watch the comings and goings below us.

After we ate, we went grocery shopping, which is our other Sunday thing to do. I did great today, spending $70 at Albertsons but saving over $100! That was an awesome percentage, and included 15 pounds of boneless chicken breasts too. Then we went to Safeway and got the .27 per pound turkey for spending over $25, so I picked up a 20 pound bird for a little over $5. Albertson's also had this awesome sale where you buy one Sara Lee pie and you get a second pie and 2 quarts of Breyer's Ice Cream for free, so the turkey and the dessert is all taken care of for Thanksgiving :-) Now I just have to work on the side dishes, and we're all ready to feast!

Doctors for all

Zac had to go to the vet today because he's been having some moving problems lately. He won't walk up the stairs, he makes us carry him. He won't jump on the couch, but instead kind of pulls himself up with his front legs. When we take him for a walk he both cries and runs at the same time. Kind of pathetic. So I took him in today and he had a physical and some x-rays and they found....nothing. His spine looks great, he's at a good weight, finally. He's actually down to 38.5 pounds, and that's from 54 his last time at the vet, and 62 pounds from when we left PA. He even weighs less now than when we first got him! But the vet says he's at a good weight for his size, and he actually took some "human" years off. He's classified as an adult, and about 51 based on size and age. But anyway, nothing wrong and the vet gave me some muscle relaxers for him to take just in case it's some kind of muscle spasm that's causing him discomfort. I'm relieved it wasn't anything serious but at the same time a little upset that we came away with no answers.

Megan spent some time at the doctor today too. She already had an appointment for a cough she can't get rid of, but before her appointment she fell down the stairs at school and seriously hurt her arm. She went in for x-rays and may have a tiny fracture, so her arm is all wrapped up and her back is all scraped up and bruised, and she's feeling pretty sore.

The rest of my day was my ChaCha day. I usually work the ChaCha thang on Fridays since I don't have to go into the hospital and can pretty much spend all day on the computer. Generally I answer over 300 questions on Fridays and that's with lots of breaks. But today was bad, and I only got in about 150.

Seems like they've initiated a 20 question limit on their users, and it seems to have slowed down the questions considerably. But there were also lots of technical issues with their servers today and I'm hoping it was the technical issues that caused the slowness because that can be fixed. If the traffic is slowed because of the question limit, that doesn't bode well for my future income potential :-(. Oh well. I still made over $480 so far for the last three weeks, and that will at least pay for Zac's vet appointment today!

Sea Change

The word of the day. Election night, and it's looking blue - Obama blue! The whole family here in Washington has been glued to the results coverage. Except for the CNN coverage and the beaming of the holograms and stuff...WTH? Thank god that 8 years of Bush is almost over, and we're looking to make history. It's almost exciting enough to make a girl want to blog!

So, it's been a while. Needless to say I've been super busy and have neglected my blogging duties. I'll try to be better in the future, but clinicals kind of wipe me out. I've been struggling in the real life scanning arena, but I think I'm turning a corner. At least I feel better about it. I have a really hard site - supposedly with the highest standards of all the sites we use. The girl that was there last year, and graduated in August says that site on my resume will definitely be a plus. But it's tough, and I won't lie - there have been tears. I keep telling Jason to buck up, it'll be fine, but he's so emotional :-) Ha. In truth, Jay has been extremely supportive and even has let me practice my scanning on him after hours.

He's busy too, working on lots of deadlines. Also, Fallout 3 came out last week so that keeps him busy when he's not working. Looks like our XBox isn't up to snuff though and we have to do something to it to keep it from crashing all the time. In the meantime, he's borrowed one from work so he can keep playing. One of the benefits of working for a game company.

Megan is working hard, and doing well in school still. She has a new boyfriend who seems like a really nice guy. They cohosted a Halloween party at his house last weekend. She went as Little Red Riding Hood and looked really cute.

Kelsey had her own little Halloween party with three friends, who all slept over and watched scary movies and ate junk and fed the 6 trick-or-treaters that we got this year. Jay and I went to dinner with Simon and Darci and then to see Zack and Miri at the movies so we would stay out of the way of Kelsey's moviethon.

Oh, and our wine and cheese party was totally awesome and we had a great time. We had plenty of wine, plenty of cheese, lots of good food and a nice little group of guests. It was tons o' fun and we got lots of great compliments on it. But now we've settled in to the start of a Seattle winter, a little cold, a bit wet, and early dark. I should have plenty more time to blog now, though, right?