The Big Clean-Up

The weekend was great.

Saturday morning we shopped for the party then went home to wait for the washer and dryer to be delivered. It worked out nicely because we were able to get some more work done around the house before they showed up. It was a beautiful day and I opened the garage door so they could roll the old washer and dryer out and bring in the new ones in no time. The whole thing went perfectly and about a half an hour after they showed up, we had new appliances installed and in working order.

One of the guys was a gamer, so we had a nice time talking about Medici, Settlers of Cataan, and a few other board games. That was nice.

I don't have pictures downloaded from Julia's camera, but she took some pictures before it ran out of juice. As soon as I have them I'll post them to my Flickr account.

The party itself was great, but I feel like I didn't really get a chance to talk to everyone, even though Mike and I talked for a bit and Jason and Liz hung out while I was getting the grill up and running. And the grilling was great! Once the coals were nice and hot (which took a bit longer than I thought it would) I cooked up the hot dogs, some chicken andouille sausage, and a skewer that Hays and Jen brought. Everyone really seemed to enjoy the food even though it was pretty basic.

After cake and ice cream, I opened presents -- which I really didn't expect, but I guess I didn't put anything on the evite to let people know that they didn't need to get me anything. So, I received a new book about the comic artist Paul Pope, a homemade bookmark from Mike & Sharon's youngest, a homemade card from their eldest, and a plant from all of them. There was also some mojito drink mix (yum), and maybe some other things that I can't remember right now.

Everyone cleared out by around 9:30 and Julia and I crashed shortly thereafter. It was a great time and I hope everyone else enjoyed it as well.

Sunday, Julia and I ran to Renton so she could check out a new gallery she was invited to join. We checked that out and she signed up to be a part of it. So, in the next couple of weeks she's going to drop off some jewelry and wait for the sales to roll in! If you're in the area and want to check it out, you can go to the (actually kind of hip and cool (or at least up-and-coming) part) of downtown Renton to check out Happy Delusions. It's on 3rd, I beleive, near the end of the street with all the antique stores. Go check it out! And buy some jewelry!

Julia was also invited to be a part of the Blue Bottle Gallery on Capitol Hill. So, you can also find her stuff there as well.

And she was contacted by the people who run the gift shops in the Seattle Children's Hospitals to have her stuff there. So she's rolling right along. Now she just has to make enough jewelry to keep them all stocked up.

Last night, just after we went to bed, Babby (one of Julia's cats) started meowing in a weird way, so I got up to check on her. Just as I did, she walked into the bedroom with something in her mouth, but still meowing around it. At first I thought she'd plucked some tassels off the pillows on the couch, but when I put my glasses on I saw that she'd killed a large -- very freaking large -- spider. Now, I'm not a fan of spiders in my living space, so Babby was a hero to me. When I say this spider was large, what I mean to say is that it was larger than any spider I've ever seen outside of a zoo or on television. It had a longish, fat body and if it hadn't been crushed by the cat's paws and mouth, its body would have been almost an inch long and much larger than that with it's legs extended. I'm sorry it died, but I'm glad it's out of my house.

Today we arrived home from work to find that construction had started next door. I guess I should say that destruction had started. The firewood is gone, the garbage is gone, the trees branches are gone, the blackberry bushes are gone, the garage is gone, the greenhouse is gone, and the ground has been raked bare. It's a little weird. I'll take some photos of that, too.

And I think that's about it for now.

Although I want to play poker sometime soon.