I'm not a fan of naps. Most people love them, but I find they screw up my sleep schedule. I tend to be groggy for hours after I wake up from a nap, and once I recover I don't get tired by the time I should go to sleep again. Such is the case tonight. I actually took a nap this afternoon and now I'm just not ready for sleep yet. It's a little bit annoying.
I can say that I'm SUPER excited for TV shows to start again. The shows I'm especially excited about include Castle, Glee, Survivor and Bones. I've also been really excited about all the rain recently. Usually Fall through Spring weather is gray skies and a fairly regular drizzle, but over the past few days we've had real rain. I had so much fun playing in the rain Friday afternoon, evening and night. Here are a couple of pictures I took:
I do think it's kind of funny that, despite all the rain, I've seen a lot of sprinklers still being used. I even hear our apartment complex's sprinklers on right now. It seems like there would be plenty of water to go around at the moment...
Okay, I'm starting to get tired, so I'm going to try to sleep. Good night!
One of my best friends from high school came to visit! She's visiting the U.S. for a while and made a special trip up to see me :D We had lots of fun. Highlights included exploring boutique antique shops, watching movies, making homemade Norwegian pancakes & Belgian waffles, wandering around Seattle and more. Here are a few pictures:
Nice hat!
I think this dress is SO FUN (it comes in blue, too)
Yummy prawns
The fuzzy penguin in Seattle
While we were in Seattle I also picked up another jar of Tayberry jam (combination of raspberry and blackberry?). AND it started raining. I was one happy girl!
I just had a birthday! The whole getting older thing isn't really a big deal to me, but it's fun to celebrate. I loved all the gifts Matt got me this year. On top of delicious goodies and expandable animals, he splurged and got me Firefly on DVD:
The shark (Schroeder) and octopus (Olivia) are already soaking and growing - I'm having so much fun with them! I'm also trying to ration myself on the sweets, and have been successful so far.
We were able to celebrate over the past couple nights, too - last night at Brewery City Pizza with some local friends and tonight with cake at our Life Group. There were a few very generous friends that gave me unexpected gifts as well - gift cards, flowers, cookies, candy, etc. It was so fun to spend time with friends, and overall a very good birthday!
This year's photo a day project has continued to go well (we're now on day 9). Here are a few of my recent favorites:
September 6, 2010
September 7, 2010
September 9, 2010
And this one wasn't one of my official "photo of the day"s, but I liked the way it came out:
In my last post I mentioned I decided to do a photo a day again this year. You can see all my pictures at http://365project.org/eksidley/365, but I'll post a few highlights here, too. Here are a couple:
September 2, 2010
September 5, 2010
So I've been converted to Google Chrome. It wasn't intentional, but last week Firefox randomly wouldn't work and, after complaining about it online, I was reminded of Chrome. After downloading it and trying it out for a few days, I have to say it's now my browser of choice (although I still like Firefox much better than Explorer). It has a lighter feel, probably because it doesn't have as many customization options. It also runs faster throughout my average workday. Firefox had a tendency to freeze up around 5pm (inconvenient and frustrating as I tend to work until 6pm). I thought it was simply the Internet since that was a time most of our neighbors were likely getting home from work and hopping online, but Chrome didn't freeze up at all, rendering me much less frustrated by the end of the day.
I've also been watching The West Wing again. Last year I talked Matt into watching it with me and we made it to the 5th season...and then lost all motivation. It's hard to power through the rough patch left when Aaron Sorkin left the show! Well, I ditched Matt, but I made it through and have thoroughly enjoyed watching seasons 6 and 7 (although I still have the last 2 discs of season 7 left). There are a lot of things that happen that I completely forgot about, and it's fun to see how much my understanding of the world has grown since it originally aired!
You know, every time I blog I tell myself I'm going to do it more regularly. I like to blog. But for some reason it just doesn't get done. Yes, it's probably because I have a lot of other things going on that seem to take priority, but isn't blogging one of those things you just kind of fit in because you want to? That's what it is for me at least...
Would you do me a favor and go to http://bit.ly/aU6Aa0 to vote for Daddy O's Burgers? It's for the Best of Western Washington and they make awesome burgers (plus Matt works there). You have to register, but all it takes is your email address and unchecking a few boxes. It really is super-easy. Any votes you can give would be greatly appreciated!
Did I mention we got to set off fireworks this past 4th of July at our friend's mom's house. It was so much fun to watch how excited Matt was to set them off! Here are a few pictures our friend gave us (the last one is me spectating):
You know, I kind of missing taking a picture every day. I think I'll start that up again. Maybe today would be a good day...September 1. It's always nice to start at the beginning of the month.
Speaking of which, my birthday is a week from today. I'm happy to send my mailing address for all of you sending me packages. Haha. I don't know what we're going to do, but it'll be a nice excuse for cake - funfetti of course.
Okay, I really can't stay up too late, so I'm going to stop myself now. Because I could go on...but I'm really going to stop for tonight. Hopefully I'll make it back here soon!
I've gotten into Flickr recently. I'm not the best photographer ever, but it's fun to see other people's pictures and post some of my own. It's also been a fun excuse to look back at pictures I took back in the day. Feel free to check out my photostream. There are a lot of really good photographers out there, though, and I've been enjoying checking them out.
I've been having fun going through the 365 photos I took over the past year, choosing my favorite ones, and making a collage by month, too. So far I've only done June, July, August, September and January...it's been fun! I'm thinking once I finish I'll print them out and make a little book of sorts. Here's January:
I've also gotten back into Tweak Today (well, as of yesterday). Users basically come up with "missions" (or an idea of a theme for the day) and vote the ones they like/don't like up and down. Each morning one is chosen and over the course of the day you post whatever the mission tells you to. For example, today the mission is "Take a picture of somewhere you would be out of place." So today, users have posted pictures of everything from a sorority house and a Tupperware party to a family on a picnic and a chess tournament (that one's mine). It's another fun online game of sorts...plus if you don't have time or don't like the mission you don't have to do it :)
Well, now that half my Saturday is gone, I suppose I ought to start in on the more responsible activities I've had in mind...
I did it! One picture every day for a year. Yes, the year officially ended 21 days ago on June 5, but this is the first chance I've had to upload the pictures on Facebook and mention it. Looking back I really like a lot of the pictures I took, although there were a lot of dull ones mixed in. Here are a few of my favorites:
Other quick updates:
We saw Toy Story 3 last night. It was really good. I really liked it. Matt thought it was good, too, although I liked it more. I also kind of made Matt watch Dear John with me. That one was better than we both expected. I thought it would be cute and cheesy, but it really wasn't cheesy at all...and as a viewer I really did care about the characters. The drama created was pretty realistic, too.
I won tickets to see Bill Cosby in Seattle! He is a very funny man, and the seats were incredible - we were close enough we could see his facial expressions without the screen. Look at how close we were:
I'm sure there are other updates I should share, but I better get going because I have things to do today.
