Back online

I've been busy - not to mention totally off-line - the last few days. It was refreshing to not touch my computer for 3 whole days. I was blessed to have my parents visit for the Thanksgiving holiday - we had a good time hanging out and relaxing.

Thursday my parents drove up while I made the dinner rolls. Once they arrived we headed up to my grandparents house for Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner we all went to the movie Australia - I wouldn't recommend seeing it in theaters.....it's not bad, but it's not great either. Really long movie - if you really want to see it....wait til it comes out on dvd and rent it.

Friday we all slept in and then my dad decided to take us to the Washington Square Nordstrom.... see my post below to see how I feel about shopping in large crowds =). Later in the afternoon we walked and shopped a bit on NW 23rd by my house. We shared an early Trader Joe's pizza dinner with the family and then headed to the Blazers' game. We had a great time at the game - the Blazers won and because they scored over 100 points.....free chalupas!! (I don't know if I've ever eaten a free chalupa.... any takers?)

Saturday we went back up to my grandparents to help make a dent in the Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch and then headed back to my place so my dad could head to the football game while my mom and I did a little more NW 23rd shopping. My mom and I also headed to one of our favorite spots... Ikea! We went late enough to avoid too many people and came out with a few things...

I had a great weekend with my parents and thoroughly enjoyed the 4 consecutive days off. Now it's back to work in the morning - and time to gear up for a busy holiday season!

Late Night Shopping

I like to shop. I'm not a crazy shopper, but I do enjoy shopping. However I do not like shopping in large crowds. I don't really like large crowds in general. I've always been that way. I don't like having to weave in and out of the crowd. I don't like the pressure of feeling like I need to make my choice quick because there is someone right there waiting to get around me, or waiting to make their cereal choice.

You know how you can enjoy shopping without the crowds? Go shopping late at night. It's great. I mean it. It's the best way to shop. Fred Meyer is better late at night, Target is better late at night, most stores are better late at night.

Now because of the not really liking shopping in large crowds, you probably won't see me out on Friday trying to find some good deals..... unless they are REALLY good deals. You have to weigh the pros and cons you see...

The preview...

If you want to see the preview for Coraline.... click here.

Coraline is the stop motion film produced at the company I work at. It will be released in theaters February 6, 2009.

A little of this, a little of that

There hasn't been too much to update on, hence the blogging silence. I'll quickly recap what's been going on around me and the thoughts in my head....

I rode the train back from Seattle last Wednesday morning. It was a great feeling to be back on a train. I had flashbacks to train rides across Europe. Some of my favorite memories from my time abroad involve long train rides with deep, or very shallow, conversations with people I will always cherish. I learned a lot about myself and what I want in my life while spending time on trains in Europe. I gained a new independence and freedom on the trains in Europe. While I can't say I learned a lot about myself on the train ride back down from Seattle, it was great to reminisce a bit.

I went in to a walk-in barbershop in the Pearl on Saturday evening because I desperately needed a haircut. I've gone to this place before and ended up with a pretty good cut so I figured what the heck. While I was getting my hair cut I was thinking up this great post about how it is important not to "judge a book by its cover" because lets just say the guy cutting my hair was ... well you can fill in the blank (and if you can't fill in the blank, don't worry, I'm about to do it for you). He was a New Yorker who likes to rock hard (he told me all about his rocker wife) and while he likes Portland, he really misses New York City. His hair was this kinda mullet-like thing (now that I think about it.....I can't believe I let him touch my hair). Now I would totally be telling you that it's not good to judge a book by its cover if you know what I mean, but the guy didn't do a good job, so I'm thinking there are times when you have to discern whether or not you should let the punk rocker touch your hair. Before I left I had him fix my hair twice because the two sides weren't even. At least now the front lengths of my hair are even..... The tricky thing is you can't really tell if the back is even until you are at home and use a flat iron on your hair. That was the moment I realized he had butchered it. So now I need to work on finding another hair person in the area. Blahhh.

In other news I got an e-mail today about there being more showings in the Portland area of the Call+Response movie I mentioned in a previous post. I'll update when I get more info on when and where it is going to be shown. If you don't know what I'm talking about.....scroll down and read about Call+Response.

Last but not least, I thought I'd share an interesting blog post from a site I hop over to periodically to check out. I thought this post from Mike Cope about a Church Shopping experiment Philip Yancey and his wife did was very interesting and worth pondering. If you choose to read it, please don't get stuck in the nitty gritty, just look at the over-arching idea. You can check the post out here.

(Update - you should be able to access the article by clicking on the large "here".... sorry it wasn't more user friendly to begin with.)

Hopefully I'll be able to check in a little later this week. Have a good one!

Sickness in Seattle

Yep, that's right, I'm sick and I'm in Seattle. Actually I'm on the downhill side of this cold thing, but still a little under the weather. And as far as being in Seattle, well, yes, I'm here for some training tomorrow and then I take the train back to Portland on Wednesday morning. That's really all that has been going on with me lately. Let me tell you though, while I was at home sick I was soooo thankful for tivo. Such a wonderful thing.

More to come later....

Disgraceful treatment

I don't really want to provide a lot of comment on the article I'm going to share below, except for that I find it to be a very interesting perspective. Regardless of my political party affiliation (of which I'm currently proud to say is "Not affiliated with any party"), everyone, from the homeless guy on the street corner, to the oil big wigs, to the President of the United States, deserves to be treated with kindness, right? Jesus was kind to the tax collector, the lepers and the Samaritan woman....

Have we Americans treated President Bush disgracefully? Maybe we have, maybe we haven't. I'm not really the judge, but nonetheless I think it is important to think about.

Side note, the author of this opinion article is an investigative reporter and lawyer who previously interned with John F. Kerry's legal team during the presidential election in 2004.

Just keep that in mind.

Check out the article HERE.

Sealed and ready to go

That's the status of my ballot - sealed and ready to go. It is ready to be dropped off in a ballot drop box now. I took a good amount of time this afternoon to go through the ballot with the Voters' Pamphlets and a little internet research to make sure I made my own informed decision. While I'm very much a skeptic of politics and what can be accomplished, I do feel a responsibility to be aware of what is going on around me. If for no other reason than to be able to hold an intelligent conversation, it's important for me to know what's happening.

Now how did I vote? Well, there is a reason there are those curtains on the polling stations, and there is a reason in Oregon that there is a Secrecy envelope..... which is my way of saying I am making NO endorsements here.

Thank goodness this election is almost over. It seems like it has been happening forever..... oh wait, it has.

Sauvie's Island

Just a few pictures to share for my Saturday morning post -

Last weekend I went to the pumpkin patch at Sauvie's Island.....


and we went through the corn maze (the maze was called A-Maze-ing Grace...)


we managed to find our way out, without a map, which either means it was a really easy maze, we were really lucky, or we were totally awesome at the Bible trivia clues provided. Regardless of which one it was, we had a good time.


We can't hardly contain the excitement from being at the pumpkin patch.

We had a great time and enjoyed what was probably the tail end of the clear, crisp, beautiful Portland weather. The gray skies and damp atmosphere is about to settle in for the long haul. However I can't complain because we've had a beautiful September and October here in Portland.

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This weekend is pretty low key for me. Seems like most weekends are a chance for me to just catch up on life from the week. Last night I went over to some friends' place for a little get together to play Cranium and hang out. Now it's time to get a few errands done and catch up on life from this last week.