Oh and I got the idea from this post (which was so popular it became this website) and lest you think I am a saint, I do expect Clark to get me a birthday present even though I really am serious about other friends and family doing a random act of kindness. (Sorry Mom, that you had already ordered me a gift off of amazon. I know I will love it:)

So let’s get down to business and see if I can do 30 things–and some of these ideas (most) I’m getting from the website above:

1. Pick up trash in my neighborhood

2. Pay the toll bridge fee for the person behind me

3. Pay the ferry fee for the person behind me

4. Leave quarters at a laundromat

5. Write a letter to a friend and send it snail mail

6. Make up bags of toiletries/snacks for the homeless

7. Leave handwritten notes in cards on park benches, cars and restaurant tables with encouraging messages.

8. Load quarters into soft drink, gumball and game machines at a grocery store.

9. Do another house cleaning sweep and donate clothes, kitchen items and furniture to Goodwill.

10. Tape microwave popcorn bags to Redbox Movie machines.

11. Drop change around a playground for children to find. (This sounds intriguing to me, will it really be a hit?)

12. Purchase & donate coloring books and crayons to the waiting room at the hospital.

13. Purchase a couple of gift cards to a bookstore and leave them inside your favorite books for people to find.

14. Open doors for others

15. Return shopping carts for people

16. Volunteer at the local humane society (Okay, wait, I do this every week anyway but I’m going to go on a different day for a shift that is shorthanded.

17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Look for ways to brighten the days of the ladies in my bible study. This won’t be random in that I know these ladies but it will be an extra effort that I normally wouldn’t go to.

22. Give a stranger a compliment

23. Leave a positive comment on a blog (I need some easy ones, it is already April 5th!)

24. Let someone in line go ahead of you

25. Bring some candy to the dance event this weekend to share with tablemates and strangers as a quick little sugar rush “Pick me up.”

26. Oh man…what else? You know what, I’m going to leave some of these open so that I will be looking for opportunities to help others. But if you have any suggestions let me know.

First off, this is Tabi doing her “supermodel” pose. Yeah, she is super fun and you should be jealous you didn’t get to hang out with her.

I love open countryside with some pine trees. And a sweet red barn. Feels like home.

So here we have my view of this lane with the sun impossibly bright in the sky.

And this is Tabi’s photo–I love how warm it is and though we don’t know those people but I think they really made the picture.

And this one is my photo. Some tall grass at the edge of a field. It is probably the horse girl in me that loves an open field with tall grass; I know how happy horses would be in it.

We drove to a different spot and found this great view of the Olympic mountains.

And while I was taking the above photo Tabi was taking this one of me.

I loved these ducks swimming along and causing the ripple pattern on this inlet.

We stopped at small state park and I focused in on the peely, multicolored bark…

…while Tabi took in the trees. Perspective is such an interesting thing.

I think of this last one as “Down the Rabbit Hole,”which is probably how you will feel if I keep posting picture after picture.  Tabi and I both took a lot of photos but I will close with this one. Obviously Washington is beautiful. I look forward to another exploring and documenting trip with Tabi.

November clouds near our house

It’s been quiet on the blog front for several reasons. Clark detailed in the last post how busy he is working. I too, have started a job and I now work weekends, which is when Clark and I would do the things we’d often post about on this blog. With both of us so busy we haven’t been doing much work on the house and so a lot of the things that we’d write about just aren’t happening. With the recent daylight savings time change it gets dark around here very early which limits what we can do too. The weather is getting cold and our garden has been put to bed until next spring.

However with all this winter gloom-ery we are so happy that our new windows are performing so well. (Yes, this is a random tangent. It is something that I’ve been really thankful for though.) We had the windows installed in the spring (we posted about that here) and we can really tell a difference. Our house feels so comfortable and warm. We no longer can feel the cold air seeping in through the single pane windows of old. It will be interesting to compare our winter bills from last year to this year.

So anyway, I’m still getting used to working again and Clark doesn’t look like he will be slowing down anytime soon with all of his projects. I’m not sure what our posting schedule will be. We will do our best.

1) Clark’s ability to kill spiders/roaches/bugs that are in our home that shouldn’t be. He can just get rid of them and go about his business whereas I have to pull out the vacuum, plug it in and then use the extending wand to suck them up so that at no time will I actually come into contact with said bug.

2) My natural hair color. I always thought it would be so cool to try something different, so I did last year. And to this day my hair isn’t the same natural color that it used to be. It’s starting to turn brassy red again. Ugh. At this point I am contemplating cutting it off in an effort to start from scratch, as it were.

3) My teeth. Well, not ALL my teeth but I am now the sad owner of two temporary crowns, and I never realized how great teeth were until now. Had I known then what I know now I would have brushed my teeth three times a day in an effort to never have to visit the dentist. Now he is my new BFF that I get to spend time with every week. Including another visit today. If I get addicted to nitrous oxide I blame the bad influence of Mr. Dentist.

Prior to meeting up with Nick and Amy I crashed at Francesca’s house Tuesday night after my flight. Francesca was a great friend of mine back in High School and I haven’t seen her since the summer of 2002. Though we didn’t have a lot time due to my flight coming in late it was really good to see her. I think there’s something special about growing up in Middletown — probably how small the community was, but it is always a blast to catch up with Middletown peeps.

Francesca and I were voted “Most likely to succeed” our senior year.

The next morning I headed to San Jose to visit my Grandma Marie whom I had not seen since Tovah and I got married in June of 2005. It was really good to see her. We spent several hours together and I learned a bit about my family history. At noon I met up with my Aunt Nelda and Uncle Don for lunch. I hadn’t seen them for an extremely long time and it was great. Don is one of my Dad’s brothers and it was odd to hug someone taller than me (being 6′8″ it doesn’t happen often).

My Uncle and I

After lunch I dropped my rental car off at SFO where Nick picked me up to then commence three awesome hours at Crossfit Marin. Working out in a legit Crossfit gym is so inspiring. We did two different WODs and an hour of self defense. I’d forgotten how amazingly talented Nick is at self defense and martial arts. I’m certainly no slouch, but Nick has inspiring skills.

I also got to see some awesome Crossfitters I haven’t seen for over a year at Crossfit Marin. Case in point, Russell, an awesome gymnastics instructor. Gymnastics is a short man’s sport. That said, check this out:

Russell and I pre-WOD at Crossfit Marin

After Crossfit Marin I had a blast catching up with Nick and Amy. I’m really thankful for getting to know Amy better. She’s awesome and Nick has done well. Nick, if you’re reading this, “props homie.” To be slightly more eloquent and detailed, I’ve known Nick for 20+ years so we’re old friends of course. I’ve hung out with Amy before but with this visit focused specifically on multiple days with Nick and Amy it in turn facilitated getting to know her more which is nice seeing as how much she means to Nick. All good things.

During that time the primary impetus for my visit was Nick’s Police Academy Graduation. After a grueling year entitling over 800+ hours of training Nick graduation the academy. Beyond that, he was the top 2nd or 3rd graduate in multiple metrics, including academics, physical training, defensive tactics and overall. I was so happy to see him recognized for his hard work.

One of Nick’s many recognition moments

It has been an incredible trip to California and I’m extremely thankful for the time with some of my best friends. Big congratulations to Nick and thanks for giving me the couch. I’m looking forward to next time.

Thank goodness for prayer, meditation and cute dogs named Remmy.

So the packers are here. In typical Enterprise (i.e. messed up) fashion they are packing us today but not moving our stuff until the 28th. We leave the 1st. So from now until the 1st we are without stuff in our house. Not the greatest plan. But it is just another step in these crazy past few months. Although we will probably not have this opportunity to drive across the country again in some ways I wish we hadn’t planned a cross country road trip. I am eager to get to Bremerton and settle down.

However I know seeing the country will be amazing, and it is something that will make me appreciate the west coast all that much more. I so enjoyed my time in Oregon–the west coast is awesome!

I miss my family that I’ve been able to see so much of these last two months and I’m ready for Clark to be done with Enterprise. We’ve been back since Tuesday and he’s already been called numerous times and had to go take over a watch that someone else screwed up. He went in about six in the evening and said he wasn’t able to straighten up all the things that went wrong until about 3AM. Guess who was sleep deprived and funky all day yesterday?

So I guess what I’m saying is that moving (LIFE!) is stressful and I know Clark finds the Enterprise stressful and golly it seems like we’ve been singing the same tune since June. I think it is time to start singing something else. Now that the boxes are packed I think it’s time to start singing this.