A Day in the Life of Two Skunks

Usually the skunks sleep with us at night. Aroma is especially cuddlesome. (Is that a word? It is now.) Then, after they hang out with us in the morning, they go back to sleep... either under the bathroom sink or wedged on top of each other between the toilet and the shower. Maybe it's cooler back there? I dunno, but they love it. Note the sock in the lower left corner, stolen from James. There's also a shirt under there somewhere.









As soon as James and I aren't looking/leave the house, they go about their normal business of destroying/getting around whatever security measures or childlocks we've put up to prevent them from getting onto the kitchen counter. We've had Toby 2.5 years and we still haven't figured something out. And once a skunk gets it into his head that he wants to do something, nothing stops him.










Then, of course, after we've punished them for misbehavior and fed them, we all come back for some quality snuggles. This picture is of Aroma - I was at my computer and she wanted so badly to snuggle, and once I showed her how she could burrow into my shirt, she loved it!














Notice the nose protruding from sleeve:









When one skunk is doing something, the other skunk usually follows. Soon, both skunkies demand attention.










Mmm, snuggles!

Weekend in Seattle

This weekend I had the immense fortune to attend Michelle's wedding in Seattle. James and I carpooled with Paul, and we all picked Emily up from Sea-Tac. It was the perfect end to a great summer, and a terrific reunion of old friends.






















There was great food, fresh air, and stimulating conversation.










The brides were so beautiful. Michelle was glowing the whole time, and even though this was only the second time I've met Samantha, she is so easy to get to know and love.












They got married in a breathtaking park north of downtown and overlooking the city and the water. Of course, I was having too much fun with my camera. :)
I must also add what a beautiful ceremony it was. A concentration of good friends, lousy weather, and (not to sound too cheesy, but there isn't another word for it) love made everything perfect. I even liked the rain, and how it stopped the second the ceremony was over. Hallelujah!













































Fun times were had all around. The reception was held at the World Trade Center, also overlooking the water.









Thank you thank you thank you Pat and Libby for letting us stay with you! It was unfortunate that we really only had one night to talk. James and I both loved your house and we are so thankful we got to spend time with you both.









*Many many more pictures to come (I took almost 600! No sign of running out of room on my memory card!). I will be upgrading my Flickr account so I can add endless amounts of pictures. Some things to look forward to: Emily dancing, Paul as Silent Bob, and James and I singing Karaoke . Any guesses as to what song we would have sung? Also, that was a horrific moment for me.

More pictures

Not sure why I love my macro as much as I do, but I am sure having fun with it. Only the ivy and the rose was shot with the macro filter, but man, I would NOT have been able to do that with my old camera, as nice as it was. Woot! Don't you just love the light in the second ivy picture? I got lucky today. :)

New Hotness

I've jumped on the SLR bandwagon and splurged on a NikonD40. Today was my first day trying out my new scary and complicated camera. I have much to learn.


These are my first pictures. The slugs were taken with a high-power zoom lens with a Macro filter. The depth of focus is extremely narrow, and I was laying on the ground with my head in a shrub and not able to see through the viewfinder, so if you take a look at the full-size image you'll notice they aren't 100% in focus, which annoys me, but I guess that's okay because I was manually focusing anyway. But then, you can see the veins in this slug, and that's pretty awesome.


































I was really just thankful that I found the slowest-moving wildlife possible to practice on.
Also, I haven't been able to color/light correct these, as I don't have Photoshop anymore since my computer crashed. :( So these are all 100% un-retouched.


















































After going to the nature preserve, I went to Winco. Then there was a car on fire! I offered my camera services to the owner in case she wanted them for insurance or something, and I whipped my new baby out and pretended like I was a real photographer. It was a little scary, though, because at one point things were exploding in the engine. I was as far away as I could be with my zoom lens, but the images aren't 100% focused because I don't have an image stabilizer and no tri-pod, either. Pooh. And again with the manual focus.

Skunk Update

Aroma is fitting in very well in her new home. We think that Toby, actually, has had the hardest time adjusting - he sulked for a few days, then they had hidey-hole wars, and now they've reached a compromise and both share the prime hidey spot (under the bathroom sink). When it's time for bed, Toby takes his usual spot next to me, and Aroma usually climbs around the bed for a minute or two, unwilling to commit to snuggles - until last night, when she flopped down across my feet. Then, little by little, she wiggled her way up through the blankets until she was wedged between Toby and I, and promptly fell asleep. It was adorable. She follows us all around the house and steals Toby's food. This house definitely needed another female!

**Addendum:
Aroma slept with us last night, too. And again, she started at my feet, then wiggled her way up the blankets until she not only was wedged between Toby and I, but she smooshed her little head in between my cheek and the pillow. Not just a little bit, either - her whole head. Eventually, she kicked Toby out of his place under the covers, upside down, sprawled out and taking up as much room as possible.

I am pleased to announce that Hubby has posted. :)

For those of you looking for a new hobby....

Poll!

In the last two years, my hubby's blog has suffered great neglect. At first, it was happy and thankful to deliver a post every week or so. Then, it started dwindling to once a month. Now, it's almost once a year. Now, I may be the only one who cares that he hasn't posted (he's claiming as such; he says I say everything for the both of us - but really, we ARE two different people, and I definitely don't speak for the "family"), but that's why I'm taking a poll.

Please take a moment to vote! It's just in the right-hand column.

So, we're pretty much all moved in to Newberg. We still have a few things to wrap up at our old place (since we had paid through the month, that allowed the luxury of taking things a little more slowly), but I'm feeling pretty much at home. My initial reaction to Newberg:

*Totally small town. I'm feeling a little isolated.
*I really like Oregon's wine country (Newberg is considered its "capital"). It's gorgeous. Gas prices have limited our adventuring, though. But I bet I'd like it more if I actually drank wine, not just looked at the vines.
*My commute has been shortened to 20 minutes, versus 50 a'la Tualatin. Woot!
*I miss my Old Navy, Target, Best Buy, Carl's Jr, and Claim Jumper. There aren't many food choices here, unless you're a big wine bar fan. This place is crawling with them.

Grr.

This week, I've been attending the Coalition for Essential Schools (CES) conference here in PDX. I'm lucky, because it IS in PDX, but it's the national conference so I'm able to "network" with some big whopadeedahs on the national scene. Also, I've been able to take two students along with me (and Caan, the counselor, who is also attending with us). The conference has more than lived up to my expectations (which were admittedly low to begin with), what with the high level of professional dialogue occurring and also the fantastic food (thank you, Sheraton!)
But even though I've had this really fantastic week to be one representative of MACA on a national level, at a relatively small workshop, and learn some really intense things (think discussions on race, equity, social justice; one of my workshops was entitled "The Unexamined Whiteness of Teaching"), I've been distracted. Poor Hubby, I've neglected him for days. All I've been doing is reading the blasted Twilight series. I started the first book on Sunday afternoon, and dangit if I haven't just finished the second. And I'm thoroughly into the third. Harry Potter didn't even keep me reading for so many hours on end. I blame my in-laws for encouraging this.
On one level I'm a little embarassed that a teen romance about vampires has hooked me so intently. So, I tell myself that I'm reading so I can connect with my students. And I tell myself that it's a New York Times best-seller so I'm not the only adult who has appreciated it. And I tell myself that it has more than 500 pages so that counts as real grown-up reading. But I can't lie to myself any longer; I've finally found a non-Austin romance that I can let myself get carried away by.
*sigh*
And now I have to wait until August 2nd for the fourth book to come out.

My friend Laura posted these videos, and I just had to pass them along. She's got really terrific things on her blog, btw, and I highly recommend a browse. I imagine her sitting on YouTube for hours, finding all the old randomness it has to offer, then sharing with us. Kind of like a filter with holes only big enough for these little gems of delight to fall through.

Anyway, the first is the original "Space Oddity" video. Notice how young Bowie looks, and how low-budget it is.



I think this second video used even less money. Most of it, I imagine, went toward David's hair dye. I can picture the director saying, "Well, our budget went toward sequins and hair dye... let's get some shots of the soundboard and pretend it's in space!"

The Right Stuff

You know you've married an awesome guy when you're sitting around your apartment and he says, "Want to go to Pottery Barn?", and once you're there you split up to browse, and you haven't told him your secret agenda to find a vase, and then you meet up again and he says, "I was looking at the bud vases over there, because I know you need more, and I think you should pick a few out."

...and all that jazz.

It's been a while. Frankly, I've been too exhausted by school to talk about school. So, I won't. However, there is much to discuss besides the s-word. (That looks like "sword"!)

I went to CdA for a few days and had the fortune to stay with the Shirts'. It was overwhelmingly relaxing (is there such a thing?) to go at my own pace, visit the lakes, take some photographs, and read my book (1491; it's phenomenal!). I missed Hubby and the skunk, but it was nice to get away for a few days, even if that meant driving 63 mph in Joey Lawrence for almost 7 hours each way. With no AC.

But, I did see good wildlife. Three dear within five minutes! (The road that goes left at the bottom of the hill leads to Patty Duke's house; it's just out of the shot.)










And this seagull really wanted my Carl's Jr. We stared at each other the entire time.










James accepted a new job today! We'll be moving to Newburg in a couple of weeks. James will be the new property manager at a small complex; we get a bigger apartment to live in, it's only 15 hours a week and he sets the hours, so he'll be able to work there while he goes to school in the fall. Also, it cuts my driving time from 50 minutes to 20; I save a whole hour EACH DAY; that's FIVE HOURS A WEEK I'll now have to spend on more worthwhile doings than driving.

Skunkie's girlfriend is moving in with us in a few weeks, as well.

More to come...

School is over, the kids have all gone home.

I'll write more later, but in short, the year ended with: a cold, a sigh of relief, a few tears of exhaustion, and two long meetings when I just wished I was at home in bed. And I only have 2.5 weeks this summer to catch up on 9 months of sleep deprivation. Viva high school. This wasn't exactly the cathartic release I was expecting.

Happy Birthday, and much, much more!

Last weekend, Lumina came back to the states from Korea. She's spent the last three years there! There was a party at Skye and Jared's to commemorate.



























Emily Potter was even there! It fah-bulous to hear Emily play, as well as Skye. Dancing commenced.












This is Skye eating a peice of dried squid. The Banana Juice was quite tasty, she said, but I don't think she'd do the squid again.



















The happy couple. They're getting married in less than two weeks!










Then, last Thursday, MACA held it's First Annual Media that Matters Tech Fest. Wow, I was totally amazed at what our kids have done. This is a pic of one of our students (the one who was gracious enough to let us stay at her grandma's house at the beach a few weeks back) giving the opening speech. I was floored - it was a really terrific speech. We held the Fest "Academy" style, with awards.










Heather before the Fest began. I am so glad I work with such professionals. :)












Then, James had his birthday on Friday! We went over to his folks' place and had delicious Pink Lemonade Cake.













Donna and I made dinner. She had a really fabulous Wolfgang Punk recipe for pork, that required Port. She had purchased some Cabernet, which was super delicious with it, but as we were in the middle of cooking she asked me how I would recommend opening the corked bottle. "Don't you have a corkscrew?" Of course not - they don't drink. So, brainstorming began:
1. I could run to the store
2. Maybe stick a knife in it to pry it up?
3. Drill a hole in the cork to pour it out?
4. Push the cork into the bottle?
James' dad ended up drilling a screw into it. A long screw. This is Amy holding the screwed bottle:













James then took pliers to try to pry up the cork. It worked, until he got all the part of the cork with the screw up from the neck, and the top part of the cork ripped off. Then he just shoved the rest of the cork back into the bottle. That was the most redneck way to open a wine bottle as I can imagine.












...but, dinner turned out amazingly, and I wouldn't have altered a thing.

Designer Headgear

This morning, a student showed up to first block late with an excused note from the orthodontist. "Everything okay?" I asked.
"No, I just found out my braces stay on for another two to four months."
"Well, it could be worse. You could need headgear."
"This is true. I guess I should be thankful for that, at least."
This conversation spread to some other students in the room, with the consensus that headgear is just about the worst thing you could have to wear in high school. Some disbelieved me that people even wear headgear anymore.

Right then, we switched classes. The next thing I know one of my more "challenging" students arrives in the classroom... in headgear.

Nobody had ever seen him in it before. Total coincidence. I couldn't even look him in the face, I was trying so hard not to laugh. I had to take a "time-out" in the hallway to get it out.