Bagel. Spagle Bagel.

5:39pm: Merry Christmas from the kitties
Both of our kitties have independently found one particular gift that they want to sleep on. Cute. I hope my mom doesn't mind the dented, hairy box.

Darla found it first:


Then Ros followed her example:


Meowy Christmas, everyone!

10:04am: Trash the Dress pictures are back!!
Woohooooooo! The photographer who did our Trash the Dress pictures at the end of September posted a slideshow of them to her blog today - and they are all kinds of awesome.

Without further ado:
Trash the Dress 2007

8:40pm: Oh hey, did I mention...
...that I'm going to South Korea next Spring? Um, yeah, that kinda got lost in all of the wedding madness this summer.

So...yeah? I'm going on a ,Rotary Group Study Exchange trip to South Korea, for four weeks next March & April. I'm taking my 8-week sabbatical, adding a couple of weeks of vacation, and not working between March 17 & May 20. But they still send me a paycheck. It's pretty damn awesome. When I get back from Korea, Trask & I are going to spend a week or so in Mexico, lounging on the beach. I. Can't. Wait.

So I've been studying the Korean language, and it's been...challenging. Whole new alphabet, different vowel sounds, etc. I'm giving it all I've got, although I know I won't be anywhere near fluent in the short time I have to study. I'm taking a Saturday class at Portland Community College, attending private lessons from a Korean teacher twice month, listening to Pimsleur conversation CDs in my car, and practicing with my language partner, Heejin, once a week. Heejin is an exchange student for Korean studying at PSU for the year. She has been VERY gracious in listening to my butchered pronunciations and not laughing (too much) at me.

With that I say....anyonghi gyesayeo! (Goodbye!)

2:56pm: Trashing the dress
Last Sunday, I went dress trashing. I met up with several other brides who had been married within the past year or so and wanted a chance to wear their dress again for something a little...different. We hired a photographer and walked out into the pouring rain in our wedding gowns.

We started at VooDoo Doughnuts, wandered around downtown, Burnside, and Chinatown. There were some awesome colorful walls for backdrops - I can't wait to see the photos we get from that area. We stopped for beers at Captain Ankeny's to warm up:


*Photo credit to Caliope Spiderman

Wandering towards Saturday Market, we came across the Fire Department....and the nice men there let us crawl all over their equipment to get some very cool shots:


*Photo credit to Adria Decker

We did make it to Saturday Market, where we drew a lot of stares. Then we wandered to Waterfront Park, and had a little time by the river...


*Photo credit to Adria Decker

...and finished up by jumping through Salmon Street Springs together, but we don't have any of those photos back yet. :) We had three 'friend' photographers in addition to the pro we hired, so there were lots of shots!

It was great fun. People were constantly stopping us trying to figure out "Which one of you is the bride?!" and then giving us blank stares when we explained that we were ALL brides....already married....etc. Best was a guy on the street asking us "Is this a high school graduation?" Ummm. Yeah. In September. In wedding dresses. Yes, buddy, yes it is. We ended the adventure dripping wet, chilly, and happy, with lunch at Greek Cuisina. Nothing like a big ol' plate of saganaki to warm you up after a long day of traipsing around in the rain in your wedding dress!!

1:00pm: What does it tell you..
...about my obsession with shopping to know that I actually find a purchase blog-worthy?

But seriously. I tried this dress on at Ann Taylor a few weeks ago, and I totally rock it, if I may say so myself. It was on sale for $40 but I wasn't sure I had anything to wear it to and $40 isn't a good deal if it just hangs in my closet. So I didn't buy it.

Today at lunch I went to the mall with a co-worker. We parked in front of Ann Taylor, and I thought about the dress. We went to the store she needed to visit, then as we were about to get into her car I thought oh WHAT the heck, I'll see if they still have it, maybe it's even marked down again.

Sure enough...there was ONE left...in my size...and it had now been reduced to $14.88.

So here you have it....the awesome little red dress that I will be sporting at my friend Adria's wedding this Sunday. She has promised to not call me a dirty whore for wearing red to her wedding, but who knows what all the other guests will think!! :P




...and the bargain hunter lived happily ever after.

8:21pm: I <3 three day weekends
Most weekends, I seem to need one day to do cleaning, laundry, and errands, and one day to recover from the craziness of the day before. This weekend we designated Saturday as errand day, Sunday as "outing" day, and Monday as sit on our asses day. :)

Today we took our outing and drove along the historic Columbia Gorge Highway, stopping at a few waterfalls & scenic points along the way. It was an absolutely beautiful clear day and we had a great time being tourists in our own backyard.

Our first stop was the Vista House in Corbett, for awesome view of the Gorge and across the river to Washington.



View east from Vista House



View north to Washington


Continuing east, we stopped at Latourell Falls:



Next we checked out Bridal Veil Falls:



....and after that the batteries in our camera died, so there is no photographic record of the end of our journey.

It was a gorgeous day, and I can't wait for "sit on our asses" day tomorrow, so we can catch up on some movies and veg out the way only we know how.

9:47pm: Whoa....
We've been married for three weeks already!

There's not much to say about our wedding except that it was perfect, wonderful, awesome, beautiful and exceeded even my wildest hopes & expectations. I attribute this to having the best friends and family in the entire world there to celebrate with us.

A few pictures from the big day:

Getting ready with a little help from my friends:


The ceremony area from afar:


There's no pity at our wedding!


The reaction Trask had when seeing me in my dress for the first time ;)


Husband & wife!


Kool & the gang:


Our friends going a "Sprussill" cheer in our honor:


Three generations:


And finally...a photo my friend Adam took. I have NO idea what I'm yelling about, but it's a great picture of my dress, dontcha think? :)

11:00am: It's all downhill from here
This weekend marks the final push of wedding preparation....hopefully. I am spending Saturday with Jami, having a delicious lunch, checking out her new house, and then having a very relaxing massage.

The next weekend we're making a quick trip to San Francisco to see the Timbers play the California Victory. The "Victory" haven't exactly been living up to their name. They're a new expansion team in the USL this year, and so far they've only been victorious in a single game. They DO have the most ties of anyone in the league, however. Maybe they should be called the California Equals?

In any case, the Timbers played the Victory last night in Kezar Stadium, which is located inside Golden Gate park, and stole a win with a fabulous goal in the 89th minute. They'll be back in action down there on the 7th, and we'll be there to cheer them on to a more convincing victory.

After being sick for 3 weeks at the beginning of June with a horrid nasty cold, I finally got well enough to start running again recently. This week I got myself back on schedule with my early morning jogs, which I love. All progress was brought to a screaming halt yesterday, however, when I had an unfortunate ankle-turning incident while walking the dog. Meesha haaaates loud engine noises, from big trucks, buses, etc. As we were walking down the side of the hill next to our house, a huge FedEx truck went by, Meesha startle, pulling me, and I slide on the recently-rained-on pavement and wound up with my ankle-sideways. OUCH! I iced it with a package of frozen raspberries and it's not as swollen today, but it's still sore and I'm not going to risk making it worse by running on it until I'm sure it's healed. Hood to Coast should be an interesting proposition for me this year....my training has been constantly interrupted by one malady or another!

11:53am: This one's for Amanda
One loyal reader has expressed her concern over my lack of recent updates. Honestly, I hadn't been posting because I've been busy, but mostly busy with wedding preparations, and I figured those were only interesting to me. Then again, that's probably the case with 90-99% of what I post here, so I suppose it's silly to let that stop me!

Wedding madness is in full swing. I'm to the point now where there are things left on my to-do list, but a lot of them are in "wait and see" status. Send final count to caterers: Can't do that until I get all of our RVSP's back. Etc. The frustrating thing at this point is that I seem to add more things to the to-do list every day than I cross off.

But, the RSVP's are trickling in, rehearsal dinner is all booked & ready to go, accomodations for out of town friends are lined up... still, there are tons of loose ends and I wake up at least once a night with a sudden thought that "Omigosh, did I remember to tell the florist the right number of corsages?! I wonder if she'd answer her phone at 3am??!?" I am making every effort to stay calm, cool, and collected however. I do want the day itself to be enjoyable, and I think the best way to manage that is to not sweat the small stuff. Luckily I have many wonderful friends who have been a great help in keeping me sane!

12:18pm: Boo!
Betcha thought I'd dropped off the face of the planet.

But I didn't.

And here, in it's entirety, is my sole blog entry for April, 2007.

Stay tuned in May.

*takes a bow*

12:01pm: Thumbs up to the new Living Room Theaters
We went out last night to see a movie at the new Living Room Theaters downtown. Right now their admission prices are $4.50 for all shows Mondays & Tuesdays, so we thought we'd give it a go. Two thumbs way up! They have a really neat bar up front, with big windows out onto 10th & Stark, right downtown. The happy hour was still in effect when we got there at 6pm, so Trask got a $2 pint of porter and I had the $4 house wine - both were good deals. They also had a good happy hour food menu, but we had already eaten so we didn't sample it. You're allowed to take food & drinks into the theaters, and there are cupholders & tray areas next to all the comfy theatre-style seats, as well as some low chairs & tables in the front & back rows. The theater we sat in could seat about sixty - but we were the only two people in the place for the film we saw. Kinda nice. :) Their film fare features a lot of independent & foreign stuff, which is definitely not in short supply in downtown Portland, but it was a nice change of atmosphere, and everyone there was very friendly.
The film itself was also rather good; I think Trask & I both decided on the walk home that it rated a firm 7 out of 10 bagels. It was a Scottish film called "Late Night Shopping", about a bunch of 20-somethings you work the night-shift and get together in the wee morning hours after their shifts end to talk and have misadventures together. Think "Clerks" only Scottish and slightly more intelligent.
All in all, a very fun time! We'll be back.

2:55pm: A tired dog is a GOOD dog
It's been a gorgeous weekend in Portland! I took advantage of the cool misty morning yesterday to take the dog for a five mile run around town and down to the waterfront. Today it was so sunny & gorgeous that Trask & I decided to get out of the house and head up to Leif Erickson trail for a good long hike. We let the dog trot along off her leash and did five miles up & back. Of course she was zigzagging back & forth so much that the poop pup probably did about eight miles. She is currently sacked out on the floor in front of the couch, snoring. Amazing what a good weekend of exercise will do for even the most hyperactive pooch! :-)

10:20pm: The kindness of strangers
It's been a long time since I updated, and I'm not going to bore anyone with the tedious details of what's been going on during my absence, so I'll just sum it up by saying:

- Happy Valentine's Day,
- Wedding planning is coming along, and
- Many condo projects completed.

There you have it.

It's kind of funny that the last time I updated it was to write about the cool last minute luxury suite tickets we got to the Blazer game, becuase tonight we had a similar thing happen! We were walking up towards will-call to pick up our tickets, when an older gentleman stopped us and asked if we were going to the game, because he had two tickets he wasn't going to use. Trask replied that we were, but we already had tickets, and kept walking on. I stopped though, and asked the man where his tickets were. His reply was "They're probably better than the ones you have." Then he pulled them out of his jacket pocket, handed them to me, said "Enjoy the game!", and walked away. I pulled Trask back and when we looked at the tickets they were in the floor section, just 10 rows back from the sideline!! Face value on each of them was $131. :-) We nervously took them to the ticket scanner folks at the main entrance, convinced that they were going to be fakes and that we'd be detained and sent to Guantanamo for questioning, but they let us in! It was great, and I have to say that watching the game that close-up really is a whole other experience. I also realized, from my up-close-and-personal vantage point, that the Blazer Dancers have just as much jiggly cellulite on their thighs as the rest of the population - they only LOOK perfect from our normal higher-up seats. ;)

In any case - the Blazers beat the Utah Jazz, 103-100. It was a great game, Brandon Roy had 26 points and Magloire didn't play at all, fueling suspicion that he's going to be part of a trade deal in the very near future.
Gooooooooooooooo Blazers!

10:29am: Last minute luxury
Last night, Trask & I were sitting downtown at a cafe, meeting with a potential wedding caterer, when my phone kept buzzing with a number I didn't recognize. It buzzed once, and I ignored it. It buzzed again about 10 minutes later, and I ignored it again. When it buzzed a third time, from the same number, I decided I'd better answer in case it was a friend/family member calling from a roadside payphone in need of help (that's right, third time's a charm if you REALLY need me and I don't recognize your #....:P).
In this particular case, it wasn't anything nearly that unpleasant. My Aunt Lavonne was calling to tell Trask & I that she & my uncle had two extra luxury suite tickets to the Blazer game that very evening, and would we like to use them? WOULD we? Hells yeah! We hoofed it a few blocks over to Trask's office so I could drop off my gym bag & laptop, then caught the next train to the Rose Garden, met my aunt at the entrance, and were whisked away into the suite. We had food on plates and drinks in hand by tipoff, and proceeded to enjoy a very exciting game from the comfort of our skybox. The Blazers were hosting the Phoenix Suns last night, and considering they're one of the top two teams in the NBA right now, we were sort of expecting to get hammered every which way. We struggled through the first three quarters, but rallied in the fourth, tying the game with less than one minute left. The most exciting and disappointing moment of the night was Travis Outlaw's drive to the basket and MISSED LAYUP WITH NO ONE AROUND HIM with 1.6 seconds to go in regulation. So, the game went to overtime, the Blazers went 0 for 5 on their first five field goal attempts in overtime, and long story short, we lost by 7 points. Still, it was a great game and a very fun way to spend an evening, when our previous plans had been to go home, watch a Tivo'd '24', and tease the cats.
Go Blazers!

9:30am: The world needs more Saturday nights
The past few weeks I've kind of stumbled into this pattern of doing all my running around, errands, appointments, etc on Saturday, so that when Sunday comes around, I can bum around the house and not feel like there's something else I should be doing instead. Another cool side effect of the busy Saturday daytimes is that Saturday night comes and I'm just slightly beat and loopy enough to really savor staying up late and sleeping in the next day. It's a good model.
Yesterday's version started with a circuitous walk around the city. First stop was Starbucks, for caffeination on our way to the art museum where we had 10am tickets for their current traveling exhibit, which had a lot of very cool ancient Egyptian artifacts and a surprisingly interesting and informative audio tour. Rambling down the park blocks we made our way to Pearl Bakery, where I had my favorite sandwich, their pear & gorgonzola masterpiece (local organic pears, italian gorgonzola, balsamic vinaigrette & organic arugula on walnut levain bread = delicious AND nutritious!), and we picked up a loaf of bread for dinner. From there we walked about 15 blocks up to Restoration Hardware to steal a swatch of paint in the "Shore" color we will be painting our bathroom, so we could take it somewhere else & get it matched and not pay $35 for a gallon of their designer paint, then took our paint sample & bread home.
Meesha & I then took ourselves up to Leif Erickson trail and did six refreshing mile - the weather was chilly & windy but gorgeously clear & sunny. Trask & I then went and got our paint & supplies, and on the way home stopped at the Bullpen tavern to chat with our friend Mark, and watch the Blazers beat Memphis in double overtime. We also met a couple of guys from Wisconsin who were visiting Portland to decide whether to move here, and were doing a personal bar tour via Max, so we chatted them up for a while and sent them on their way with a good list of places to hit downtown. Then it was over to Freddy's for groceries, and home by 10:00.
In short - a busy, busy day, but now here I am, sitting on my couch blogging while tonight's dinner cooks itself in the slow cooker, with nothing to do but blog and think about maybe taking a run over to the high school track to calibrate my Nike/Nano running thing. I used it for the first time last week and after running my normal five mile loop around the city, it thought I had gone all of .72 miles, which isn't QUITE as accurate as I'd like. Other than that...lazy day!
It's a good weekend.

9:52am: Honeymoon - check
Since I know you all look forward with bated breath to each & every wedding update...here's the latest.

Some background: I've been working at Intel for nearly seven years (!!!) now, and as such I'm eligible starting in July of this year to take my two month paid sabbatical leave. You have no idea how many times in the past seven years just the thought of this sabbatical is what kept me from walking out the door! :-) It will be a much anticipated & needed getaway. Trask & I have decided to use this unique opportunity of such an extended paid leave to spend time in Austria & Switzerland during Euro 2008, the European Championship competition that is held once every four years. We may or may not attend a few games, but the goal is to travel around between several of the cities where matches are being held, spend time with fans, and just enjoy two countries that neither of us have ever visited before. Since Trask doesn't have the benefit of getting a paid sabbatical, he's saving up vacation time and hoping to have about four weeks accumulated by the time summer 2008 rolls around. In light of this, we wanted to take a romantic yet somewhat shortened, reasonably priced honeymoon immediately after our wedding this year, to save days and dollars for that huge trip in 2008.

That said, I think we've come up with the perfect Pacific Northwest honeymoon spot. We spent hours gazing at B&B websites and finally chose a lovely home called the Inn at Ship Bay on Orcas Island, in the San Juans up off the coast of Washington. We'll spend four nights there, and enjoy our days biking, hiking, soaking in the lush & gorgeous scenery, and generally forgetting that we have any responsbilities whatsoever awaiting us back home. I can't wait! :)

10:51am: Cake overload
Aside from the whole "spend the rest of our lives together" aspect, I think the single best part of the wedding planning & marriage process has got to be the cake tasting. When else can you show up to a bakery and get plate after plate of free desserts?

Trask & I spent part of Saturday afternoon at Pambiche, which is a Cuban restaurant and bakery in NE Portland. They do the most fantastic cakes & desserts, and I only knew that they offered wedding cakes because my foodie friends Jami & Adam had their wedding cake done there. They're not so much about the decorative aspect of your cake, it's all about the taste here. They'll make it pretty and put your choice of flowers on it, etc, and it all looks very nice, but trust me - you won't be thinking about the decorations once you take your first bite.

We sampled at least twelve different cake varieties, most of which were laced or drenched in some kind of delicious liqueur, and were happy to discover that we both preferred two specific cakes over all the rest. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. And here, for your drooling pleasure, are the two cakes that will be gracing the table at this July's Spagle-Russill wedding:

Maracuyá – Sponge cake laced with Alizé, cognac and passion fruit liqueur, filled with a tangy passion fruit mousse.

Island Carrot Cake – A Pambiche classic, superbly enhanced with a rainbow of tropical fruits, Bacardi Select Dark Rum and guava cream cheese.

I couldn't possibly choose a favorite between the two of those, as I would gladly survive on either one of them for months on a desert island somewhere. Yum.


We may also be in the market for a new caterer soon, as well. After some great initial meetings with our friend Chris at Iorio, we've had a horrible time getting in contact with him to confirm our date. We sent a few emails in November & December, with no response. Figuring that the holidays are probably a busy time in the restaurant biz, we decided to wait until January & try contacting him again. So we sent another email in mid-January...still no response. Trask called & left a message last Wednesday, the gist of which was "Hey, yo, we want to pay you an exorbitant amount of money to cater our wedding in July, are you in or out dude, we can't get in touch with you....", and five days later, still no response. At this point, even if we DO hear back from him, we're a little uncomfortable depending on someone so flaky to provide the meal at our wedding, which is going to be the main focus of the evening and the most expensive thing we shell cash out for. So yeah. I guess the upshot is, we'll begin the new caterer search this week, pray to the Wedding Gods that there's at least one decent shop in town who still has availability on July 14, and at least look forward to some free food tastings! :)

11:54am: Catching up
I finally loaded some of the pictures from my camera to my Flickr page. There's a set from our visit to the state fair this past Labor Day (Trask had NEVER BEEN to the state fair before!), a couple of Jami & Adam's new baby boy, and some cute ones of the pets.

Here are a couple of photos of our new condo:







And Jami & Adam's darling new baby, Joshua:



Such a doll!

12:26pm: And....exhale.
PHEW. I've made it through another year end at work.

In case anyone had wondered if I'd wandered out into the woods and become lost from civilization forever, the answer is no, but I may have prefered to spend the last fourteen days in a snow cave. It would have been quieter, and I bet I would have had more sleep.

Today at 1pm we released earnings to the street and finally, my two week workfest will begin to slow down. There are still a lot of things to do, but now that we're past the big bad earnings deadline, things should be much more manageable.

And as if on cue, the skies dumped about 4 inches of snow in Portland today, permitting me to cuddle up in front of the fireplace with my laptop and catch up on two weeks worth of ignored emails. The snow is gorgeous! It's been a couple of years since we had a good solid blanket of snow in this town, and everyone is appropriately freaked out and all the school & offices are shutting down in panic.

I'm glad things are back to normal! :-)

10:26am: Bucking the Thursday trend
That's right, you thought I only updated on Thursdays, but here it is - Friday!

We have settled nicely into the new downtown condo and I have to say that I absolutely love it. Everything we ordered was delivered on time and without incident, and looks even better than expected in the spaces we had planned for each piece. I love the coziness of it all. All fears about the three pets co-existing with two humans in a smaller space have been alleviated, and everyone is getting along swimmingly. Pictures will be taken and posted as soon as the final few boxes are put down into storage and out of the way. All that's left is to invite friends over so that the new house is officially 'warmed'!

Speaking of friends, our dear friend Robin had a holiday party on Sunday and it was fantastic. She made pies and little penguin appetizers out of olives, cream cheese & carrots that were too cute for words (but not too cute too eat - for the were delicious!). There was much food and wine and cider and conmingling of holiday cheer. It was the perfect ending to a long weekend!

Wherever you are, whatever holidays you're celebrating - I hope you have a joyous weekend spent with loved ones!

3:44pm: What is it with Thursdays & me?
I just noticed that my past three updates have all been one week apart, on Thursdays. First Thursday. Thirsty Thursday. There are lots of reasons to love Thursdays, but I don't think that's why my posts are falling on this day. I think I just get sick of work about 80% through the week and need something to take my mind off of it temporarily!

Projects & craziness abound this holiday season! I'm feverishly working to finish some handmade needlework ornaments that I started back in September to use as Christmas gifts. Saturday my mom & I will host our family's annual Christmas Ornament Exchange, and Sunday Trask & I are picking up a U-Haul and moving to our new condo.

I'm most excited this weekend about the Ornament Exchange party! This year we decided to have it earlier in the day, and make it a holiday brunch as well. We're going to make a frittata-type dish with eggs, potatoes, bacon & peppers in it (yum!), cinnamon rolls, and a huge fruit salad. Did I say yum?? I think this year the ornaments might be outshined by the food!

I'm taking vacation from work next Monday through Wednesday so I can stay home and perform all the necessary nesting rituals in our new place. This may have to include painting two accent walls in the living room/dining room area. The previous owners had several large mirrors & prints hung on these walls, and when they took them down, they patched the holes for us. Unfortunately, the walls are bright red and the large spots of patching material are stark white. I wasn't too crazy about the loud shade of red they had up there anyway, so some changes may be in store. I'm thinking a nice calming terra cotta. That's right. I'll just paint two big walls in my spare time, in between having a washer/dryer, dining set, buffet, and couch delivered, and having the Comcast guy install cable & internet service. Shouldn't be a problem, right? :-) I'm sure my loyal readers will be waiting with bated breath to know if I accomplish everything or not - I promise to let you know as soon as I do.

3:28pm: Legomania
I've been volunteering with the Oregon Robotics Tournament Outreach Program (ORTOP) at their Lego Robotics Tournament for the past five years or so. It's a very cool program where groups of young students team up with mentors to develop robots from Lego kits and program them to try to accomplish a set of themed tasks (the theme is different every year). So one year the competition table might be the ocean floor, and they have to rescue a diver, move a ship, outrun a shark, etc. This year the theme is Nanotechnology, so it should be fun! The local tournament Trask & I are staffing this year is in Vancouver, Wa., and we'll be there this coming Saturday & Sunday. Trask is the announcer ("And Team Crazy has rescued the diver, for FIFTY POINTS!"), and I'm the tournament scorekeeper, which suits my Excel skills just fine, thank you. :) It's so fun to see this program grow. The first year that I was involved, there was just ONE tournament, with maybe 15 total teams. This year there are 350 teams participating in local touraments all across the state, and local winners will move on to the state tourney in January. It's just great to see the kids get so involved with it, and work together to learn new things and discover their abilities.

The timing of the tournament this year is a little inconvenient - we're moving next weekend (the 16th/17th) into our new condo, and could really have used the time this weekend to start packing the house! Luckily we're pretty far ahead of the game already and I think we should be able to get most of it done in the evenings next week. I just need to find some boxes. Anybody have any moving boxes they can spare? :)

In holiday news, Trask's extended family decided that instead of spending money on exchanging gifts between adults in the family, they would adopt a family through his aunt & uncle's church, and we'd all donate money to buy gifts for that family instead. I think it's a fantastic idea. We all have more than enough "things" cluttering up our lives already, and it's a fun way to get into the spirit of things, still get to do some holiday shopping, and help someone who wouldn't have a very merry holiday otherwise. Fabulous!


Happy December, everyone!

10:06am: Old friends & new arrivals
First things first. Jami had her baby!! Joshua Joseph Davids arrived at 8:34pm, on November 29, 2006. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 1 oz. and is 20 inches tall. I'm so excited for Jami & Adam I can hardly stand it! It's amazing.... to think that when Jami & I met in kindergarten 25 years ago, we'd have no idea that we'd still be friends today, and celebrating the birth of her first child. Makes ya just a little teary-eyed, doesn't it? Admit it. ;)

In the old friends department, I've been contacted by two old high school acquaintances in the past two days via MySpace. Bizarre! The first is a girl who graduated a year ahead of me. We were friends through junior high & high school and ran together on the track & cross-country teams. She's living in Italy now (awesome!!), and I guess was randomly finding people to re-connect with from high school. It was great to hear from her & I hope we can keep in touch!

Then last night, at the Underdog Bowling Tournament of Champions (where, it bears mentioning, the BOURBON CREW took home the trophy!!), I bowled against a team with another gal I went to school with!! She was a couple of years ahead of me, and I'm embarassed to say I didn't recognize her the whole night! But this morning she had messaged me on MySpace saying "I KNEW I recognized you from somewhere!" I'm so bad with remembering faces & names. I mean, I went to a school with 300 people in the entire high school, you'd think I might remember a few of them.

This weekend, I'm meeting my mom & Trask's mom at Charlotte's where we're going to order my wedding dress. I am VERY excited to order the dress. I've had it on my mind since I found it in July and I will rest easier once it is on its way to me! That will be the "fun time" for Saturday. The rest of the weekend will be devoted to cleaning out the basement & garage, making a trip to the dump, and getting just a tiny bit more prepared for our big move in a couple of weeks. It's just a tad stressful having to think about moving this close to the holidays, but if we can power through to January, it will all be worth it.

And just to piss off Mr. Bill O'Reilly: HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

7:39am: Happy Thanksgiving
Last Friday, Trask & I met his mom for dinner at Esparza's and a movie at the Laurelhurst (we saw "The Illusionist", which was OK, but not as good as I was expecting). While at the theatre, Trask discovered that they served the Timbers Army's own "No Pity Pale Ale", which was a pleasant & cool surprise. It was a good night.

Tonight, to kickoff our four day Thanksgiving weekend, we're going to see the Blazers play the New Jersey Nets at the Rose Garden. The Blazers beat the Nets 86-68 in New Jersey last weekend, so my hopes are high for an entertaining game and possibly even a win tonight. Regardless, the team has been playing with much more energy and enthusiasm this year tan they did last year, so it should be a fun evening.

Tomorrow, we'll spend the day with family, enjoying a delicious meal.

And Friday, the Spagle women will make the annual trek to the Black Friday sales, with the traditional 4:45 start time at Fred Meyer in Tualatin for half-price socks.

I think about all of these things and realize how thankful I am for the people in my life. I love living close to my family & friends and being able to meet them for dinner & a movie, early morning shopping, and anything else we please. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and safe travels to all my friends who are migrating home for the holiday. I hope your day is spent in the company of people you love.

12:21pm: You win some, you lose some
Quick update, since things have been so crazy lately and I've been neglecting the Spaglebagel Blog!

The first condo we made an offer on fell through. The inspection revealed several code violations that we weren't willing to deal with, so we backed out. It was a bummer, because the place was so cute and in such a wonderful location, and we had to tell our potential renter that our house wasn't going to be available Dec 1st after all.

But our awesome, fantastic, wonderful realtor Sammye Sanborn kept her eyes peeled for us, and about a week & a half after the first condo went belly-up, she had found something even better! This one is also near a Max stop (even a little closer to work!), is newer, has a patio & a gas fireplace, and is bigger. All around excellent. We made an offer last week and accepted the seller's counter-offer last Saturday. We're going to be there today for the inspection, and I anticipate that this one will be much smoother than the last. Ooh, best part about the new condo? Three words: Property Tax Abatement. $100 a year, baby. Booyah.

The fabulousness just continues from there....we contacted the woman who had wanted to rent our place on Dec 1, to ask her if she'd still be interested in a Jan 1 move-in date instead....and she was very excited & said yes! So we don't have to go through a new tenant search, she's already passed the background check etc, and we're ready to go. We also got to contact all of our friends who wanted to buy our furniture and tell them that they can now haul it away any time they like!

Finally....Powell's. We took about 15 boxes worth of used books to Powell's, figuring we'd sell 25% of them and make $100 or so. I'd never sold anything to Powell's before and I figured they've gotta make money, so I was likely to get around $0.25 per book. We took a mix of novels, travel books, history books, etc. We wound up selling about half of them and taking home $375 in cash! Way more than we expected, and a pleasant surprise. We'll be taking that money and using it to buy a TV for the new place. The highlight of the Powell's trip was the book-buyer having to consult with someone from their Rare Books Room on a hardcover copy of "For Whom the Bell Tolls". It was a Charles Scribner edition, and there was some debate over what release or edition it was....they looked it up in several reference books, and finally told us that they were only able to give us $15 for it (still, $15!) instead of $675, because it was not the edition they thought it was. I almost wanted to grab it, take it home & check for myself!! ;-) THAT would have been a very nice bonus.

In summary: things have been busy, our new condo will be great, and Powell's rocks!