Fun Days!

The road in front of my house was still pretty hard to navigate on Saturday night when my friend came over. It is only just starting to bare the asphalt only today. I am really adoring having an all-wheel drive car - it's making life easier this winter!

Since my friend and I stayed up late, we slept in too, and spent the entire, glorious day together. My sister's family comes over on Sundays, so, after an excursion in the snow, we entertained my niece and nephew by wrestling and rolling around with them on the living room floor! So much fun! And exhausting! By then, it was time to take my friend back to her house in Seattle, but I went in and stayed to play games like Spite&Malice and Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? until it was very late.

Monday was... very unlike Mondays! Thanks to vacation! I slept in a bunch, and then my sister and I went to BCC for her to sign some papers (and we reminisced with old friends, like our old co-worker in the mail room and one of my sister's profs - my old profs weren't in). After that, we headed for Crossroads Mall where we spent some time in Half Price Books, where I got a "then & now" book on London, mostly for the photography but also for the history of all of London's famous streets & buildings. I also picked up the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum Story of Flight (300 pgs with lots of beautiful pics). We then dropped in on Uncle's Games and I got two very nice puzzles, and then we had a little snack, Greek style at The Mediterranean Grill.

We arrived back home around four pm, and I immediately realized that I was missing the first part of my brother's "Band of Brothers" marathon when I saw his friend's car parked outside. Thankfully, they had only got into the second episode (which I had just seen on the plane this summer), so by the time I finished my Christmas avocado with my sister, I joined in on part three of the ten part (and hour) miniseries. There were seven guys over, so I had to start out on the floor. The show was so well done, I hardly noticed the eight hours as they went by. I had seen bits and pieces of most of the episodes before, but only on TV. This was my first time through the whole thing. It is a great experience if done that way. Wow!

Today I had planned on doing just reading and writing, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. The snow had melted enough for my sister and I to head out to Carnation for some belated Christmas and horseback riding. We had a good time, but it was very snowy and wet all over the trail and we didn't get very far. But it was good to do horsey stuff again and see our friends. Our Christmas gift from our Aunt and Uncle was a trip to Outback Steakhouse, so that I just returned from. They have an excellent Tilapia and Crab dish that is just delightful!

On to tomorrow after a little "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" with my siblings! Ah, vacation!

Jp

It's Melting!

It first snowed here on December 13th, exactly two weeks ago. Today is the first day that it actually began to melt. I can start to see my neighbor's roof and our light bulbs on the rock wall in our yard. This has been absolutely incredible for all of us here... not only having more than four inches, but having it stick around for more than two weeks is just unheard of here.

Well, my aunt and uncle were snowed in on Christmas (they live a half-hour away to the east of us, toward the Cascade Mountains), but they let us come in my all-wheel drive Subaru to pick them up! So we stopped just outside their hilly road and they walked up and got in! So they came for Christmas, just like normal! I ended up greatly enjoying my very first very white Christmas. Not only was everything covered (I did a lot of shoveling when I woke up), but huge flakes were coming down as well. It would have been a perfect day if I hadn't have stepped in dog poop. LOL

We had our usual huge breakfast, which includes waffles from a waffle iron with strawberries, hash browns, scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon (which I generally decline), link sausage, and my personal favorite, spam. Needless to say we were generally full for the rest of the day. There was a little bit of salmon dip that I enjoyed later on, but that was pretty much it.

I got a couple things I wanted, like that big Narnia pop-out book that has stuff from all seven books, sort of like an illustrated time-line through the series with large colored images from the books. It's a great one! You can make the Stone Table crack, Prince Rabadash wiggle as he's stuck on the wall, the Dawn Treader escape from the sea serpent, and they even have a mirror with a beard! Gosh, it's awesome! But I most enjoyed how much my siblings liked their presents. I was even the tiniest bit able to surprise my sister M, who is impossible to surprise.

And then without knowing about the details from chat last Saturday, my mom got me "A Christmas Story" on dvd! So we watched that Christmas evening after we had taken my aunt and uncle back to Monroe. I now understand the leg-lamp joke going around at work and I have a better appreciation for my Red Ryder BB rifle that I got in 1994. LOL

Yesterday I went out with my bro and my sis to Best Buy and Fred Meyer, where with Christmas money, I got a portable hard-drive for my photography class and a couple of movies that have been impossible to find: Miss Potter and Miss Pettigrew Live for a Day. The latter of which, I watched on the airplane going to China this summer. It's set in 1939 London - and it's very fun and well done. A surprisingly good period piece.

Before Christmas, I watched "A Tale of Two Cities" (1958) when I needed to relax, and I was impressed at how much of the book they squeezed into it! The actor who played Sidney Carton nailed the performance, I thought. And then last night, my brother and I and our parents watched "The Dark Knight" on his projector. I totally understand why my sister didn't care to watch it again. The Joker is... beyond disgusting. The bad guys are unrelentingly and shockingly evil - it's pretty repulsive to watch. I closed my eyes many times so I don't get nightmares or something. I do like Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman a lot, but I don't think I could handle watching this again. The ending is really good, but the bad guys are just... too bad. I loved Batman Begins back in 2005, but that was a very different movie.

I'm going to try and not feel depressed about watching that last night... :)

A good, childhood friend of mine - that is going to school in Florida - and that I haven't seen in a whole year - is coming over tonight for dinner and a sleep over! Very excited for that! But I don't think I'll make it onto chat... so for all of you out there tonight... Good night, and good luck!

Jp

Merry, Merry Christmas!

I Dared to Watch...

A good friend of mine told me to watch "Shadow of a Doubt" (Hitchcock, 1943), and I did so tonight with my sister and parents. Now, usually I am scared silly by thrillers, but this one I really enjoyed. There were a few tense moments, to be sure, but the main character was a delight to watch. It was a great one, and everyone loved it. It turned out that my mom had seen parts of it before on the other classic movie channel, back in the day, so she particularly liked seeing it in its entirety.

I don't think I'll have any nightmares, but I'll be sure to say so if I do. At least I'm not looking over my shoulder after this one (I hate that when I have to look over my shoulder).

And I'm officially done with work at Aerojet until the Fifth of January! Yey!
I don't know what I'm going to do with myself tomorrow!

A Very Merry Christmas Eve to you all!
Jp

It Inspires Me.

'
"Not to know what happened before you were born
is to be forever a child." ~ Cicero [a wikipedia page]

(For those hackers out there who know Latin - sorry - inside joke)
"Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit,
id est semper esse puerum."

No, I didn't go around reading Cicero over the weekend. Actually, I watched 'The Emperor's Club' the other day, and this one little line that was quoted in a classroom scene has stuck with me since watching it. It defines my passion for learning and loving history.

My goodness, I LOVED that movie.

Jp

Oh, but yesterday...

I saw Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for the first time in a LONG time.

I think it must have been the abominable snowman that scared me as a kid.

LOL

It's beginning to not feel like Christmas

Just had a good cry, and it was quite refreshing.

Let me see if I can explain this to myself...

I'm upset that I can rarely communicate with my dad in meaningful ways.
I'm upset that my bro talked about my chatting with my friends with his friends.
I'm not happy that the snow will probably keep my aunt/ uncle/ gramma from coming over on Christmas like they do every year.
Although, we'd have our first "White Christmas" in... ever.
I'm upset that I have a hard time explaining myself sometimes.
I'm VERY upset that I rely so much on what other people think of me,
and what I do, in order to enjoy what I do and who I am.
It's so darned annoying, but it's the way I am!

And for heaven's sake, they made me come into work on a snow day.
(Jen thinks for a moment, and then realizes that she is grateful for her job.)

[and yes, I almost typed Betty-Jen to make it look more familar]

It's beginning to feel like Christmas again. Little by little...

Jp

My New Website

A fan page dedicated to the characters of Remember WENN.

http://www.rememberwenncharacters.org/

And a new fanfiction is posted here and there.

Jp

Let it Snow...

It just keeps coming! I think we had about 5 inches last night, and it's still coming down really hard! It's so exciting, because it's so rare... Oh, Washington... :)

Since we're pretty much stuck at the house (and I knew we would be last night), I slept in this morning and relaxed. The family is still over, as well as friends of my parents, so I hope they are able to do what they need to. They might have to stay... it could be fun!

I'm going to put my GI boots on, as well as my BDU wet-weather pants and waterproof civilian coat (like I did last night) and take the dog on a walk. It's a lot of fun when you don't get soaked or frozen... LOL!

Jp

Oh, The Weather Outside is Frightful...

A low of 15 degrees last night! Wow! Anyway, we still have our snow from last week! I don't ever remember snow that lasted that long... ever. The only other time I remember temperatures like this was our very irregular storm back in '03 where we lost our power for a week or so. That made it rather inconvenient for staying warm... :)

Oh, but even though there is still snow, it hasn't snowed since Thursday. They've done an excellent job taking care of the roads since then, so Mom and I were able to go to the symphony again last night like we had planned a few days ago. We saw Handel's Messiah, and it was my first time. It felt like heaven... the multitudes praising Jesus... it was incredible! We also ran into an old friend of ours from years ago! What a coincidence!

[I also realized how awesome it was that I heard the music and words exactly as they were heard 266 years ago, when it premiered in Dublin... I feel privileged to be able to hear it, and humbled.]

Right now it's bright sun outside shining on all the snow... but they've been forecasting a huge snow and wind storm coming our way today which... according to the last snow we had... means that it will get here tomorrow.

We'll see!
Jp

Snow Day!

As there are two giant hills between my house and my work, I didn't go in today because of the three inches of snow, coupled with the bad drivers. My confidence was shaken as Dad and I tried to drive this morning in my Subaru, when Dad yelled at me for going too fast and this guy drove right through a red light into the intersection a few seconds later. Dad doesn't like it when he's not in control of the car. Everything was fine, but I turned around and went back home as I didn't want to risk not being able to stop at the bottom of the hill.

Got lots of stuff done though! I made those Christmas CD compilations I've been meaning to make all month... and I took the dog for a walk in the snow... and I frosted all the sugar cookies with my sister. I also took an hour nap on the comfy chair in the living room around 2pm... Gee! I wish I could do that every day!

My boss called around 8:30am to check in on me because nobody from my department, including herself, went to work today. My dad went in later when there was nobody else on the road and he said there were only a couple at the whole plant.

Hopefully the roads will be sort of safe tomorrow...

Jp

Last Night

I'm pretty consistent at talking about the previous day, aren't I?

Last night I watched "The First Wives Club" from netflix with my mom and sister. My goodness! I wasn't expecting to see Palermo Racine! Or Captain Amazon! And then today on IMDB I find that Celia Mellon was in the first scene as the younger version of Goldie Hawn's character, Elise! Oh, and Maple's husband Greg was in it too... what a pre-union! And I rented the thing because Rupert Holmes is doing a stage version of it next year at one of the theaters that Amanda Naughton performs at... and they say it's headed to Broadway. Surprises abound!

Oh, and I loved it! It was very funny and had a great screenplay!

After my brother got home from his Marine workout, we all headed to the Olive Garden for a great - and rare - family time together. And when we got home, we sang some carols together by the light of the Christmas tree and the window lights.

(sigh of contentment)

Jp

BRRRR

On my thermometer at home... 21.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Dad and I took the car that was parked in the garage because he couldn't get his door to latch close on his little escort.

Pretty pleased about the Owensboro folks getting the plays on CD... but can't wait til they do WENN! http://www.newmysteries.org/

Most of yesterday was spent working on my website, which I will soon post! I'm going to work on some of the lesser characters, and then I'll only be missing a few pages. Of course, there will be formatting to fiddle with, but generally, most of the different pages already have text... they way I like them.

Jp

Winter Dreams

First snow of the season today! I first saw it around 3:30 today when I walked out of church from serving some ladies from a few of the area women's shelters a Christmas luncheon.

"When it snows, ain't it thrillin'?" You bet! Now I can actually, really start dreaming of white Christmases...

Sigh. :)

The rest of today was spent finishing up all the Christmas lights - just a few more strings to go on our pillars. And then I wrapped all of my presents for people. Not too many to shop for though.

But yesterday, I had the time of my life! It was all so dream-like!
I took my mom to a fancy dinner and then to the Seattle Symphony for a Christmas present. The show we saw was called "Winter Dreams" - a collection of Handel, Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky. The first two were shortish and were the first times I've heard just strings and a harpsichord live. They were so soothing and beautiful! And then Tchaikovsky's piece was just gorgeous! When we got home - around 10PM - and after I had changed out of my fancy clothes, I felt as if the whole thing had been a beautiful dream. What fun!

Here's to dreaming about lots of white stuff!

Jp

Ending Thoughts

Last night was my final photography class for Fall Quarter.

All 27 students or so took pushpins and put up their strongest pictures from all our assignments. I put up my later cropped sister portrait, landscape, stop motion, and swing set (Depth of Field), along with three abstracts, three light meter pictures, and two statements. I also put up the one with my sister petting my dog - because it was so darn cute.

We went around the room and had to get up in front of our pictures and talk about them... what we did, what we liked, what we didn't like, or anything that we could think of to say. Now, I hate speaking in front of groups of people that are staring at me. I was pretty nervous (without fail!) and forgot to mention some things that I wanted to say. But other than that, it went just fine.

By the end of the evening I felt very humbled by the great work that all of my classmates did. Partly because I know I did not work as hard in the darkroom as some of them did, and partly because I thought less of some of the photos before the critique started. It adds so much to a body of work to hear the photographer talk about the pictures. I am a very jealous person... jealous of other people doing better than me... so my first impressions were not very generous sometimes - thankfully I didn't say anything. But when we stopped and talked about them, I realized how good some of them were. But a couple of people's work just amazed me from the beginning! Some of those people are phenomenal! Wow! It helps me think, and feel more creative after seeing the whole class's presentation put together.

This was a great opportunity for me to take a step back from myself and think about my reactions to the people in my class and their work, and I think I'm going to improve. We'll see. I wish I could have tried talking about my pictures a second time... after I finish speaking the first time, most of the anxiety goes away. And it helped to hear some more of the students speak who were not nervous. But that would have been oddly boring to hear about the same pictures twice! :)

Well... I'm gonna keep taking pictures.

Jp

Hello Again

Too many things to do... so little time.

I spent way too much time on my website on Monday night.

So much so, that I was bummed I had to drive on Tuesday morning. And worried about driving home from class that night... but staying awake turned out not to be an issue. I just played some harder music and I was really excited about how much I loved my class anyway.

This was the final exam for the history side of class (which was so easy and fun!), and tomorrow is the final critique of all our good photos that we printed this quarter. And then I won't have class until January 13th! My goodness, I'm going to miss it, I already know! Carla told us a little about next quarter's class, where we will work with computers and printers. There are new textbooks to buy and memory to find... and she said that the UW has state-of-the-art negative and print scanners... so I can finally make all my important film pictures digital! YEY!!!!!

I started today off by sleeping in all the way to 7:45! Yeah! It's an hour and a half later than regular days at least. I then made myself a full bowl of oatmeal and a couple of scrambled eggs for a very rare weekday breakfast. This was because today I took a day of paid Personal Time Off (what we call PTO) from work to hang out with my sister as she proctored her final exam for her last class at Green River College in Kent. Writing fanfiction was easy in a quiet room full of students taking an essay test - too bad I don't get the opportunity more often. :) We then went to lunch together, at a place called Panera Bread. They have wonderful sandwiches and salads and soups... all on their own freshly baked bread (sort of a bread-lover's dream - mmm!). For lunch, I had half an Italian sandwich with a chicken noodle soup in a sourdough bread bowl! Wowsers!

When we got home (around 1:30) I helped mom bring in the groceries she bought and then headed out to do my Christmas shopping. I got it mostly all done! And since none of my family ever reads my blog... they think it's sort of silly... I got a great cold weather digital camo shirt for my brother, a little toy camo helmet for my nephew, a couple Christmas CD's for my dad's birthday today, both of the things I needed for the gift exchanges at work, and a few odds and ends. While at the surplus store in Woodinville, I found some WWII camo print pants. So I got them for myself because they were so darn cool. It's a brand new pair, printed on a modern style cut of BDU pants. :) I'm sort of geeky. I think I'll probably wear them if I go riding on Friday.

I'm very grateful for a day in the middle of the week to get things done! What a blessing! It was sort of a last minute choice to take it off, so it made it even that much more fun.

Tonight we hung the popcorn on the tree that we strung on Sunday when we watched our classic popcorn stringing movie: The Pink Panther Returns. LOL! Lots of fun memories! And we also put on the ornaments tonight to finish the job. This year we decided against doing the tinsel, and I don't mind so much.

Jp

In Remembrance

The guns are quiet now.

67 years ago tomorrow: Sunday, December 7th.


Light on the names. Let's never forget them.

From the bow of the USS Bowfin, the "Pearl Harbor Avenger", commissioned on Dec. 7th, 1942. USS Missouri and Arizona are in the background with Ford Island behind them.

Pearl from the air, Nov. 30, 2007.

:(
Jp

Running Around and Never Stopping

Well, I had a lovely ride on Friday afternoon! After I fought with Roo over picking his right back hoof - and after I won - he behaved marvelously! My sister and I were kinda late getting out there, so we didn't ride for long. The sun started setting right after we got to the power lines on the trail, so on the way back we were treated to some gorgeous sunlight and a beautiful sunset at the pasture upon returning.

Most of today was spent putting up Christmas lights on the bushes and on the house (I do that part of it alone each year) and then the family headed out to Issaquah to buy a tree. I found one about 5 feet tall with a perfectly straight trunk and stem... which is highly unusual for our family for some reason. So it went on the car right away.

Upon getting back to the house I put up more lights in the windows and on our big laurel bush.

Hurrah for Christmas! I love the lights and the joy!

Jp

Chasing the Sun

I leave work a little early on Thursdays (my job is very flexible that way - I just make up the time on Fridays), so as I left to get here to school about an hour ago, the sky was just gorgeous with creamy yellow and soft pink melting into a pale blue behind the black tree outlines.

And then coming down Clyde Hill in Bellevue (as I'm avoiding SR-520 traffic) there were fancy Christmas lights all over (it's a rich part of town) and from the crest of the hill I can see the sunset going down behind a lighted downtown Seattle across Lake Washington with the light just fading behind the Olympic Mountains... Ahhh... the blues and yellows with wispy clouds... I don't think I could ever move away from the Pacific Northwest.

Well, now it's almost time for my third to last photography class...

Until later,
Jp

This week...

(Sigh.)

Although I was shocked yesterday around 4 o'clock to learn that it was already Wednesday, today seems to be slowly eking by. It's only 10 am! It is very hard to stay focused at work for some reason.

Last night the family watched "To Sir, With Love" from Netflix. I really loved it! After that I began work on my very own website... but it's at such an early stage it's not worth sharing the address yet. I'm officially joining the group of crazy Remember WENN fans with websites. And loving it.

I do need to re-learn some basic HTML so I can change the background color and things like that. It shouldn't be too difficult though, because I bought space on a newbie-friendly hosting site for only 4 bucks a month. I have a unique web address with a .org - and no ads! There are so many possibilities, I'm so excited about working on it. I might get a lot of it done this holiday break, we're off on Christmas Eve, and we don't have to go back until Monday, January 5th!

Holy Toledo! It's already Thursday!

Jp

Yikes!

An interesting quiz - thanks Linda! The figures that this organization came up with are very frightening. They found that incoming freshmen know just about as much about American history and civics as outgoing seniors in American universities and that incoming freshmen only scored roughly 50% on the quiz. I just found out that a friend here at work (only 2 years younger than myself) wasn't required to learn any general US history in high school at all! I think the problem may lie in secondary education, not only in higher education, as the researchers conclude. And then the politicians... I won't even go there.

I'm feeling a little flabbergasted.

Jp