Sometimes the weather is nice...

So the time may be here...the time of clear skies and warm weather. You know what that means? It's time to dust off the telescope and we need to check out Saturn!!! Check it:

Sounds like Saturn is about to get seen! But not tonight...maybe tomorrow? Damn...this might need to wait till Friday night. But it will be happening soon, and it will be awesome!!

Sometimes you run...

So I have to take Sophie to school now and pick her up. So what I've been doing, and plan to continue doing is use that as a little bit of exercise. I run at little over a mile between the 2 trips(.6mi each way). I walk her there(with some running sprinkled in since she wants to race sometimes), then run back to the apartment. And I do the reverse in the afternoon. "Might as well do something while you're doing nothing" haha

So here are some pics I had been meaning to post:

Hash browns and enfrijoladas I made for Sophie on her b-day weekend.

Instead of syrup, frosting lol

A typical Sophie lunch. Avocado/tofu sandwich, olives(she loves them!), pickles, and a fruit, in this case, blood oranges.

These birds visit our apartments every day around 11am. I saw them through my window while working.

They all come as a group, pick at the grass for food for a while then leave. I tried to get better pictures of them, but it was hard. They fled as soon as I went outside(these were taken from my window).

These bluebirds I had seen for a while and been meaning to take a picture. While trying to chase the other little duck looking birds, this one was posing!

Like a boss...

Then I was done, going back inside, and it flew down to the little porch, where I could get it from the window. They remind me of K-PAX. Bluebird!! Bluebird!

Sometimes you go see houses...

Yesterday we started the day by going to see 2 houses.The first one was a cute "grandma" house. Like you could tell that an older person lived there, and it hadn't been remodeled/updated in decades. But it was very well taken care of, just the finishes were old. The problem with it for us is the location isn't ideal. But it did feel solid. Here's the link:

http://www.redfin.com/OR/Portland/4525-SE-Haig-St-97206/home/26359287

 The other one was pretty much falling apart. And despite this, it already had 6 offers on it. It is never a good sign when they don't put any pics of the inside, and yeah, sure enough, massive water stains on the ceiling from the inside, like really bad, to the point that it looks like it might fall in. A swimming pool outside with green slime/water in it. It was in terrible shape. And at a quarter of a million dollars, apparently that's a steal.

http://www.redfin.com/OR/Portland/4424-SE-Windsor-Ct-97206/home/26505316

After that we went to play soccer at the park with Sophie, then to grab a pizza for Sophie and to some food carts for lunch. Then to the grocery store, then  home. Today, we did nothing all day. I made breakfast, then we played some angry birds, then we just were lazy lol. Right now we cooked some rice for tomorrow's dinner, and washed dishes. Back to the grind tomorrow morning...

Sometimes you are surprised...

Geli was infatuated with a little boy in a movie we watched. Get this, she thought a kid was adorable. Geli. Get your head around that...

We watched "Monkey Trouble" and let me say, I really enjoyed it. I seldom expect to enjoy kids movies, but this one was very entertaining, and even engaging. But back to the little boy, check it out, it is linked right to where the little boy comes out:

http://youtu.be/-WwPtsLh1Qw?t=36m6s

Geli really liked the little boy haha I still can't get over Geli really liking a kid!

Anyway, other than that, I am glad this hectic week is over. Sophie likes the before/after school care, so that is great.

Again, this thing won't let me upload pics. Weird. Like it opens the files, but never starts the upload....odd. I will look into this tomorrow. Maybe.

Sometimes you are exhausted...

So this week has been crazy...and today was no exception, although to a lesser extent. I don't know where time went in the morning, but I was again almost late to work. I had to "race" her there so we would make it on time. And I also ran back to the apartment. Also, I cannot, whatsoever, do Sophie's hair. She wanted 2 colitas and 2 clips, I did no such thing. I tried, and failed many times, then gave up and did a horrible colita and 2 probably misplaced clips that didn't hold very well.

I had pics I was gonna talk about, but they don't want to upload, and I have no patience for trying other things right now, so I am out. Talk to you all later!

Sometimes you avert disaster...

Today disaster nearly struck multiple times....it seems I can't do new things without chaos ensuing. I remember my first day of work in Milwaukee I rode the bike, and it was raining, so I got soaked, in my dress clothes. Also, the day care people, on the first day, didn't show up, so I had to hunt them down, and was late for work lol so yeah, I am prone to chaos and disasters.

So as a preventive measure, I got the day off. Still, this did not deter chaos from ensuing. It turns out, I am terrible at calculating how much time it will take me to do things. And as a result, am always running late. I though I was on pace to get Sophie to school on time, and all of a sudden it was 8:05 and she hadn't even eaten breakfast!(we leave at 8:15) Also, apparently, I don't know how to do her hair, so putting the clips she wanted took way longer than it should have. She goes in at 8:35, and it was 8:22, so I decided that we should bike there to be sure she was on time. We barely made it on time! Barely!

Then, I needed to go to her puppet show at 12:30. I wanted to be there at 12:15, but ended up out the door at 12:15. Would have been fine, but my bike had a flat of course. So what to do?! I had to be there and record this....so I took Geli's bike. I must have looked ridiculous riding a bike for someone that is 5'2". But again, I made it! Again, barely!

From my previous list of to do things:

• Backup pics to external HD and mirror them.
• Make Sophie breakfast and lunch
• Tell Sophie's teacher about the before/after school care she will be attending(that we don't be picking her up, the daycare will)
• Figure out where the before/after school care drop off is at the school
• Talk to the daycare people about her snacks/breakfast/food(since we're vegan)
• Fill out any forms they might need me to fill out (for the before/after school care)
• Make dinner(x2) only made 1 dinner :(
• Do laundry
• Do dishes
• De-click the fisheye lens
• Pick up Sophie
• Do Sophie's spanish lesson with her
• Go to Trader Joe's(grocery store) - didn't go, but I did get tofu, which was the main reason we needed to go. 

So all in all, not bad at all. But it did get crazy, and I am exhausted!! Also, I missed Geli a lot. But I am glad she's working in her field again! So I am out...

Sometimes an era ends...

The era of Geli being at home with me all day. Sadly, that is over. Although it is awesome that it is because she has a job at Intel now. I am going to miss having her here though. I always had someone to talk to, we had lunch together, watched some TV during lunch, hung out and what not. Now I won't have that. And it will be chaos too, because somehow, I have to get Sophie to school and pick her up too. I have tomorrow off from work, just because I didn't think I could handle taking Sophie to school before work on the first day I do this haha. Already I have this huge list of things I need to get done tomorrow:

• Backup pics to external HD and mirror them.
• Make Sophie breakfast and lunch
• Tell Sophie's teacher about the before/after school care she will be attending(that we don't be picking her up, the daycare will)
• Figure out where the before/after school care drop off is at the school
• Talk to the daycare people about her snacks/breakfast/food(since we're vegan)
• Fill out any forms they might need me to fill out for(for the before/after school care)
• Make dinner(x2)
• Do laundry
• Do dishes
• De-click the fisheye lens
• Pick up Sophie
• Do Sophie's spanish lesson with her
• Go to Trader Joe's(grocery store)

So yeah....I will be plenty busy. If I can get half of that done, properly, it will be good day haha.

Another "era" that ends today is that I finished (finally!) the certification track I started late last year. I passed the 70-647 exam(for a total of 5 exams) and finally got the MCITP: Enterprise Administrator on Windows Server 2008!

It took me about 5 months, and 4 exams(I had done the client OS exam back in 2009), but I did it. I am finally done with that. I will probably take 1 week off or so, then start with the update to Server 2012, which for the MCSA: Server 2012, is only 1 exam(70-417). I signed up for it already, for May 24th.

Sometimes you have no time...

To say much. Been studying most of the day. I have the exam tomorrow. Let's see how that goes.

Sometimes you freak out...

Okay, tomorrow I have to study like +6 hrs. So yeah, freaking out a little bit here. Today I studied, but it was not nearly enough. Gotta get some sleep so I don't forget what I did study today.

Good night.

Sometimes you go eat spicy food...

Today we went to a goth bar, to eat spicy food. We got a sitter, and went to this event that Geli found out about, "A taste of inferno" which was a food tasting/contest where people signed up and took spicy dishes and you taste them all, and vote for your favorite. The winner got to give all the money from the door donations to the charity of their choice. So we tried some spicy Thai un-ripe papaya  savory salad, some "four alarm" fire green beans, some hot portobello tacos, some spicy drunken Thai noodles, and some chipotle brownie cookies. All were tasty, and to my own surprise, my favorite was the Thai salad. A salad!!! wtf...haha Also, it served as a reminder of 2 things:

1) I suck at talking to strangers(we didn't talk to anyone there, and there was about 40 other people, most were vegan probably).

2) I thought I ate very spicy food. I don't. Some of these dishes were so spicy I had to eat them very slowly to be able to eat them.

No pics because it was at a goth bar, and as such, it was pretty much pitch black in there. I was not going to be flashing food to take pictures and draw attention to myself lol.

Sometimes you love spring...

Today we walked while Sophie rode her bike to a store to see if we could find Sophie some shoes she could wear in wet weather, since she destroyed her rain boots. On the way there and back, I could not help but be blown away by the flowers. Spring is just blowing my mind here. I never thought I would be so taken by flowers, plants, and trees. But Portland is really having quite a phenomenal spring(granted this is the first one I am here for). Check it out:

Sidewalks lined with petals under the cherry blossoms!

I know that's a lot of pics, but I couldn't just put a few and show you the magnitude of what's going on here. Maybe it is just that I come from the desert and there's really not much more than a tiny rosebush here and a petunia there. Here it is like I am at some botanical gardens, except I am just walking around a normal Portland neighborhood...Oh, and tulips, apparently I really like them. And they are everywhere! They just seem to grow like weeds here! Pretty much in every house, it is very very cool!

Somteims you are tired...

I just studied today after work, didn't do much other than that, so I won't bore you with the details. Hopefully I will have more exciting things to report soon.

For now, I am out. Time to sleep!

Sometimes you study...

Today after work I didn't do much. Had dinner, played some Angry birds with Sophie and Geli which is apparently what we do after dinner now. And then I got to studying. Got a lot done. Been studying for like 4 hrs or so, and strangely enough, I prefer it a lot more than when I study just one hour or so. It takes me a while to tune out distractions and get "in the zone".  But once I am there, I power through the material, and I like it, so it doesn't feel like a drag really. I almost don't want time to run out so I can get more done.

Anyway, I will try to do this tomorrow too, so I can be done with most of the studying, and the weekend will just be review instead of heavy studying.

Haven't had time to process any pics, so here is another weird food pic, courtesy of the box of mystery(seasonal) produce we get delivered to our door every week:

Artichokes! They don't really look edible, they look like some tough desert plant. And you eat it in a weird way. Steam it, then you peel off each petal, and scrape off with your teeth the fleshy part that was towards the center of the plant. The closer you get to the center, the fleshier it is. And then almost at the end, you get to this:

It is kind of fuzzy filaments, that you scrape off, then there is the "heart" under it, and you eat that too. Geli made a mayo based dipping sauce that was fantastic. Even Sophie loved it. It was really good. Yet another vegetable we would never have bought. I had tried artichoke hearts before, but not the actual artichoke. Which by the way, the heart is so small, no wonder artichoke hearts are expensive. Who ever discovers these things? And how? I mean who looked at this thing and said "I bet you I can eat that!"?!

Sometimes you need to get out of the house...

Today we had beautiful weather. It was like 60 degrees and sunny most of the day. Geli was out and about all day, so she was tired and didn't want to go anywhere after dinner. I asked Sophie if she wanted to go ride her bike, and she didn't want to go either. I mean, that's cool for them and all, but I am inside the apartment all day lol. I felt it almost criminal to stay indoors all day when it is so beautiful out. So I went for a bike ride by myself over to the Esplanade, which is this bike trail downtown, that runs along the river, super awesome. I love it. I took some pics, but due to studying I don't have time to process them right now, so I owe you those.

But here is an old one of the same place I went to today:

Riding in nice weather is one of my favorite things to do. It's exercise, it's relaxing, invigorating, and here in Portland, you get to take in beautiful views. So yeah, I needed that...I am glad I got out for that. On the way back,  I stopped at the co-op and got some things we needed, then headed home.

Sometimes you feel the pressure...

Okay, so the next certification exam is a week away, and I haven't studied as much as I should have. I now have 1 week to be ready for this exam and I haven't even done half the studying I want to do. Gonna need to power through this, but it's almost as if I need to feel the pressure to be able to do this well...weird. Last exam in this series though!

So, as you already know, I work from home. And this is the view I have from my "office". It's pretty sweet. I don't mind waking up to this every day :)

Sometimes you do nothing...

The whole weekend. First time that happens in a long time, if ever. We didn't go anywhere, we didn't even take Sophie bike riding. I just went to go get chinese food take out on saturday and buy a ratchet to fix Sophie's bike. That's it.

We played Angry birds with Sophie for like 2 hours today lol all three of us, taking turns. It was awesome!

Other than that, not much going on, today was truly a lazy day...

So back in February when we thought we were going to buy that one house, I took some pictures during the inspection. So here are pics of the house that would have been ours if we would have just come to an agreement on the issues that came up from the inspection, which were plenty(39 pages of issues the inspector found!). We wanted them to fix the major ones(chimney detached from house, sewage line had roots blocking it in the garage, to name a couple big ones), and they refused to fix them or lower the price so yeah. Anyway, here are some of the pics:

They refused to make the repairs or lower the price because they claimed they didn't have to because there were already other people very interested in the house. This was back in February, the house is still sitting there on sale. So yeah...I hope they are enjoying paying utilities and taxes on an empty house :)