I had my annual physical exam today. Nothing exciting to report, although it amuses me that I'm apparently having the opposite problem as before.

I've seen the same doctor the past couple of years now. For a while, my weight was hanging out somewhere between 105-110, usually on the lower end. Since starting my job, however, I've actually gained a bit of weight and that range has moved up about 5 pounds. Add onto that the recent visit from family, which included a couple of meals at restaurants, and I weighed in at 116 this morning. After going over the other measurements the nurse had taken — blood pressure, heart rate, temperature — she gets to the weight, then looks at me and asks if that's normal for me now. She then strongly encouraged that I start exercising, because this sort of thing "can sneak up on you gradually, and before you know it you're 50 pounds heavier and wondering how the heck that happened"!

Normally, stress makes it even more difficult for me to keep on weight, and my job gives me a fair helping of that. I'm also on my feet all day and do a fair amount of walking around during that time. I'm still not eating breakfast regularly. I suspect it's a combination of eating a Hot Pocket for lunch about 75% of the time and then getting home ravenously hungry every day and snacking while making dinner. (Shame on me, I know. =) ) The weekly Friday donuts probably didn't help much either, but those are gone now thanks to budget cuts.

In any case, between that and the knee pain I've been starting to develop, that's two more strikes against my current job. ^^b

Or maybe my metabolism is finally winding its way down, which would be a shame. I'd hate to actually have to make an effort to stay thin. ;-)

When we had some slow time at work, I went upstairs as a part of my large inventorying project to clean out the storage rooms. I found quite a few things that I would not have expected to find at a bank, including cowboy hats and doctor costumes. I guess at one point they had dress-up themes to go along with promotions. *shrug*

Apparently when they first came out with their Online Banking, they were giving out mini USB mice along with a free Online/Bill Pay consultation. I found one left and asked my manager if I could have it, and she said yes! :D

So now I have a ridiculously tiny (but functional!) mouse on my desk at home. It's shiny!

Cutlery and More sent me an email today advertising that their Alton Brown Shun knives are on sale for the first time ever. Not like I'll be spending that much on knives anytime soon (or ever, really), but the clear acrylic knife block is pretty cool.

I was much more excited about the lower half of the advertisement that was talking about a sale on their Pure Komachi knives. You might remember the love affair I've had with these knives in the past, thanks to tekman's mother. It looks like they have two more knives that I do not have: a 4" fruit/veggie knife and 6.5" hollow-edge santoku. I have the smooth-edged Santoku, so you could easily argue that I do not need the hollow-edge one, but I've been wanting a real paring knife for a while. Right now we generally use the small santoku from our set of Cuisinart knives.

Gasp! :D

(I am saddened by the fact that they've done away with the stamped tangs. The original meat, santoku, bread, and fish knives I got had cute designs that were visible through the translucent handles. It looks like they may have switched to the plain handles that my sandwich and cheese knives have. On Kershaw's website, they show the purple hollow-edge santoku as having the same cutouts as the green smooth-edge santoku, so maybe that's just the new style.)

(I also discovered that apparently both the Pure Komachi and Shun knives are made by Kershaw, and that technically my knives are Shun knives. Pretty spiffy. :3)

Is it a bad thing if the lady at the pharmacy counter apparently knows me on sight and knows what I'm coming in for? =S

And now for some even more depressing news: I've heard from a (possibly) reliable source that The Keg in Lynnwood might be closing. A coworker's mother does cleaning for them and found out, and she told all of us at work today. I'm not sure if or when it will happen, but they did seem pretty empty when tekman and I went a few weeks ago.

No, not the beginning-of-the-year kind. This refers to my previous two posts.

Regarding Post 1: I found this attached to the second pair of pants. (Yes, I still insist they are two pairs!) Coupled with what was on the receipt, my guess is that they just doubled up that style of pajama pants for their sale.


There was also a visible tag attached to the other pair, which had the original price of the item. This tag had been hidden within the folds of clothing.

My mind continues to be broken, but whatever works for them.

Regarding Post 2: Unable to let the Awesome Soda Deal slip past me I went back to Safeway after work last night in hopes that they had restocked. They had not. This time, I talked to someone, and they gave me a rain check that is valid for 90 days. So yay!

I also stopped by Safeway tonight to take advantage of a couple of their deals for the week:

1. Three Pepsi product 12-packs + Two Doritos/Lays brand chips for $9.99
2. Whole chicken for 99¢ a pound

Granted, the latter is what I pay for chicken already at Costco, but our Costco chickens are currently blocks of ice in the freezer, which does not really work when you want to cook them within an hour. Really, the whole reason I was going was for the Pepsi/chip deal to stock up on some more Diet Mountain Dew for tekman, but picking up something fresh for dinner only sweetened the deal.

tekman and I chatted on the phone while I drove to the store (I had it on speakerphone; no scolding!) about how to prepare the chicken, and we settled on a stovetop roast chicken with a spicy thai sauce. I needed to pick up cilantro, red curry paste, a chicken, and tekman convinced me to try looking for Thai Kitchen fish sauce if they had it. Nothing much, and despite the fact that I rarely shop there I was fairly confident that I could find everything relatively quickly.

I bagged the cilantro first, contrary to what Alton Brown would have suggested doing, and then went to look for the chicken. I found packs of dark meat and whole cut-up chickens that were way too large and twice the price. After walking around a bit more, I flagged down someone, and she confirmed that they were sold out of chickens for the day. They also did not have any fish sauce and did not carry red curry paste.

At this point, I figured I'd stop by QFC on the way home and went to pick up the real prize: super cheap soda and chips. Naturally they were out of Mountain Dew, but I was surprised to see that they were also out of Diet Mountain Dew. None of the other Pepsi products were out of stock.

So all I had to show for going out of my way is a bag of cilantro. Which I ninja'd back in with the rest of the cilantro, plastic bag and all. <.< >.> Shhh! It wasn't me!

If you saw the following label in a department store, what would you expect to find on the hanger?

1. One set of pajama pants
2. Two sets of pajama pants

( The answer! )

At least this time it was only for about 10 minutes.

I had to work today, and it had snowed enough again that the driveway was covered in another six inches of snow. (tekman had cleared off one side in order to get to the grocery store on Tuesday, but we got quite a bit more on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.) I spent about an hour this morning clearing off the Focus side of the driveway to the road and then figured I'd just go from there.

9th Ave West had gotten plowed (poorly) before the last snowfall, and so there was a pretty large island of ice in the center of the road between the two well-worn tire tracks; it was probably at least three inches thick. I backed out into the road and over that island and then tried to go forward. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good angle and ended up with one tire stuck up in the icy slush. Thankfully, xyon was around to help tekman shove me back to where I could drive the rest of the way.

Well, more like skid and swerve my way to work. The plows had cleared 4th Ave West pretty well, but 218th up to that point was all snow and slush, and there were a few moments where I worried that I'd get stuck again because of how low to the ground our Focus is.

I got to work without incident after that, but figuring out where to park was a different story. The parking lot was a morass of snow and slush where only a few brave souls with four wheel drive had attempted to go. So that was out of the question for me. The drive-up was finally blocked off because of the ice, so I couldn't park in the employee lot either. The secondary lot further up the hill was full of mostly untouched snow, but I didn't want to take any chances. I finally found some street parking in front of the bank and hoped that no one would slide into me on the way past.

Coming home was even more "fun" than leaving the neighborhood. Halfway up the road, another car starting coming from the other direction, so I had to hop over some snow onto the proper side of the road so we could pass each other. I never got to the point where I worried I would get stuck, but my Focus and I were sliding quite a bit.

Part of me thought it was kind of fun. =)

tekman had spent a good chunk of today shoveling and re-shoveling our driveway and the street right around it. He broke up some of the ice and tried to clear a larger section in front of our driveway so I'd be able to get in. Unfortunately, there is a group of mailboxes in front of our house, and the people with SUVs plowed right through the snow to get to them and pushed it right back into the way. I barely made it back in. But here I am, and thank goodness I don't have to work again until next Tuesday. :D

Yesterday morning, tekman and I were shaking our heads in disbelief because the school district canceled classes for the day because there might be a really bad snow storm. The actual snow here didn't come until about 4pm.

I had to work the full day yesterday, which means I got out at about 6:15. The last couple of hours we spent watching cars, trucks, and buses fail to make it up the hill out in front of the branch. One guy ended up on the roof of his car for some reason. We're not quite sure why.

I drive our tiny little 2000 Ford Focus to work. The only other option is our 2006 Honda Odyssey, which I believe is even worse out in the snow. In any case, I was definitely not prepared for snowy + hilly driving. I live less than four miles away from where I work but have to drive on quite a bit of residential roads in order to get to my house, and those were not being plowed.

( And so began my fun 2-hour trek home that should have only taken 10 minutes... )

I've always had trouble with my hands and feet getting cold easily due to poor circulation, and my fingertips and toes tend to go numb if I'm out in the cold or driving for an extended period of time.

Tonight, tekman took the kids to the City of Bothell Winterfest at a local park, and I met them there after I got out of work. The sun had already been down for a couple of hours, so it was quite chilly outside. We ended up waiting in line for their hay ride after the big tree was lit. I was, of course, in dress shoes and stockings, so my feet were bricks of ice pretty much immediately. I had gloves on my hands, but eventually the cold started getting to my fingers as well.

It wasn't a huge problem until they started feeling all tingly and numb on the way home. When I got home and took off my gloves, this is what I saw:


No, that isn't a trick of the lighting. Other than a bit of shadow on the bottom of my hand on the first picture, you can see a clear line between where I can feel my fingers and where I cannot.

I've seen my toes go white pretty regularly, but this is the first time I remember my hands getting so cold that there was practically no blood in my fingers. No wonder I could hardly feel them. They're still numb enough that I'm having quite a bit of trouble typing this entry! XD

My poor, stupid fingers.

They're about to start selling tickets for Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy in Seattle at Benaroya Hall. The program will run on July 10th and 11th, 2009, at 8pm. Tickets start selling December 8th. I just got a promo code via email that supposedly will let me purchase tickets before then.

Anyone else want to go? We need to snatch those tickets up quickly, as they sell out quickly. We could possibly look into group rates if we can get 10+ people interested.

(Also: If you don't want to come, I need a babysitter! :D)

So (I think) I'm supposed to be attending a class down in Tukwila tomorrow and Wednesday from 8:30-5:30 both days. I'm already dreading the commute since I won't be able to carpool.

Does anyone know of any back roads I can take to avoid 405 as much as possible?

I'm still not quite sure why, but American Express just put me in a bit of a pickle.

Recently, tekman and I upgraded to an Executive membership at Costco as we tend to spend enough there annually to make the extra rebate worth it. Since our AmEx also doubles as our Costco membership card, they issued us new cards that are black on the back instead.

tekman's card came pretty quickly. Then a few days later, he got a second one. I called cardmember services that afternoon to see if there was a mistake, but the woman on the phone assured me that I should be receiving my own card the next day.

It's been over a week now, and I still haven't gotten it. I called again today, and this time the representative had me confirm my current mailing address. Turns out that my current address is still at our town home in Redmond from six years ago. Well, that explains that... except that I swear I have gotten at least one new card with an updated expiration date since we moved up to Bothell.

Unfortunately, it's not just as simple as them updating my address and sending me a new card. Since a card was sent to the wrong address and has not yet been activated, for security reasons they have to deactivate all cards with my current number and issue me a new one. They're sending me a temporary card on Tuesday. I'm not sure how long it will take for them to mail me my new card, and if I want to go to Costco in the meantime I'll have to ask them for a temporary membership card as well. Plus, now I have a new number to remember to recognize on receipts, and I have to update any online shopping sites that I have using my current one.

As it happens, I had a trip planned for Costco today. Guess I'm not going by myself. >_>

Guess what I found... :D

Paper craft meets Pokémon My Pokémon Ranch style: Pikachu | Chimchar | Piplup | Turtwig.

These will probably take much, much less time to put together than the Hello Kitty modular origami set I was going to try to modify to make a Pikachu...

I've had this project to do for a while. After we got a second GBA (thanks again, wrexen; we're getting a ton of use out of it!) and both kids became obsessed with pokémon, we discovered that my Pokémon Silver cartridge would no longer save games. While we could get around that by keeping the SP plugged in all of the time, that was a bit more work than Zach wanted to deal with, and Alex just decided to stop playing altogether.

(They had decided independently that my Yellow version was Zach's and the Silver version was Alex's, where by "they" I mean "Zach". I think it's because the Yellow version has a picture of Pikachu on the front and is therefore inherently superior. This was before we discovered the battery issue, so I don't think it was malicious on Zach's part.)

I scoured the internet for what to do and found several guides that explained how to replace the battery. They all involved detaching the original battery, which is soldered to the contact tabs, and then somehow taping the new battery in to ensure it's firmly in place. That all seemed very shady to me, not to mention that I couldn't figure out how to get the special screw off the back in the first place.

Someone on girl_gamers brought up the same issue, and someone in the comments posted a link to this very comprehensive guide. Unlike other guides, every step had pictures, which made me feel a little better. I was finally able to put my round nosed pliers to use, as they were the only thing I could wedge into the tiny area between the screw and its surrounding plastic. I had no luck trying to turn the screw with a screwdriver, as the guide original suggested.

And of course I had to take pictures of the process because it was fun and I need to be able to prove to my kids later that I am an awesome mom. ;-)

Seth MacFarlane just started up his Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy yesterday. The first two videos are up: Super Mario Rescues the Princess and A Dog on the $25,000 Pyramid.

It's a lot like Family Guy, so if you like that you should find these (especially the Mario one) pretty darn funny. And if you don't, you only have to waste about three minutes of your time finding out. =)

Very occasionally, I let my fingernails grow beyond the usual millimeter or two. They tend to break or snag beyond that point and just become a nuisance anyway. But every once in a while they make it past that point, and I'll actually bother to file them and make them look nice. Not so far as nail polish or anything crazy.

And sometimes when that happens, I regret that my favored hobbies — namely playing the piano — make it impossible for me to keep them this long.

I almost snapped one of them off last night hurriedly opening a drawer. Something tells me they'll have to go within a few days. =\

My sister is in town, and she mentioned that she'd like to go someplace with a good view of mountain ranges so she can take pictures. (She doesn't have a crazy camera, just a simple digital point-and-shoot.) We're going to St. Edward State Park in a bit, but I'm pretty sure you can only see trees there. Huge and pretty spectacular trees, sure (comparatively speaking, of course), but not much else. I could be wrong about that, as the only part of the park I've "explored" is the playground equipment.

I thought maybe some of my mountain-climbing friends might have suggestions. She made it pretty clear that she doesn't want to climb, although if there happened to be a mountain with a car trail that would allow her to get a higher view, she would probably like that.

I am coming temporarily out of my LJ hibernation with a request for folks local to the Seattle area: does anyone know of a good beer-making supply store in the area? I'd like to make some homemade kaiser rolls, and the recipe I'm going to try needs active diastatic barley malt powder or syrup. The author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice (which is a crazy book and at the same time very awesome) suggests either ordering it online or via catalog, or going to a local beer supply store. We tried looking for barley syrup at Trader Joe's and had no luck, so we thought we'd give this a shot before ordering online, as lots of people around here make beer. (I think.)

edit: tekman turned up Mountain Homebrew & Wine Supply in Kirkland pretty easily thanks to Google. They knew exactly what we wanted and mentioned that bakers come to pick it up pretty frequently. Guess we'll check them out tomorrow.