Wednesday is the day for business

My favorite radio station, KMTT, used to play this every Wednesday cause "Wednesday is the day for business. " It always makes me laugh. Happy Wednesday!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Another weekend has flown by all too quickly. The highlights:

• Celebrated a very belated birthday dinner with Suzie at Mama's Mexican Kitchen in Belltown on Friday night. The food was yummy, as usual, and so were the margarita's and it was great to get caught up with Suzie.
• Woke up early on Saturday morning so Don and I could head up with hill to do laundry. I do love being able to do 4 loads of laundry in less than 2 hours.
• Sorted through every pair of socks that I own with Kat and threw those that met the following criteria: 1.) holes or runs of any size or shape (cause let's face it a small hole will be a big hole in no time at all), 2.) translucent fabric (when gym socks resemble nylons it's time for them to go away), 3.) outdated styles (remember those thick crew socks that you would pull up and then scrunch down for that *legwarmer lite* look), 4.) haven't been worn in the nearly 3 years that I have lived in Seattle (I used to love crew socks but don't anymore so they got thrown in the donation bag)
• Made a list of the replacement socks that would be needed to have a good selection/collection and set out with Kat to find them which we were able to do with a stop at Fred Meyer and another at Macy's.
• Stopped shopping long enough to enjoy a burger, fries and onion rings with Kat at Red Mill Burgers.
• Browsed through Barnes & Nobel and picked up a few books that we had been looking for.
• Saw 27 Dresses, which was good, except for the really creepy solo dude that was seated next to me.
• Laughed so hard that I cried during the "Benny & the Jets" mondegreen scene. Kat and I were both having major "Myzah Georgia" and "DaVinci View" flashbacks.
• Unpackaged and put away 46 new pairs of socks! :-)
• Watched and mocked the "not-so modernized or improved" Miss America pageant which my TiVo had recorded. I was disappointed in the final choice, Miss Michigan, cause what beauty queen can't sing "Over the Rainbow," give me a break. She is the stereo-typical Miss America proving that some things just don't change. Miss Washington made a great showing and I was really proud of her top finish.
• Savored a wonderful dinner at DeNunzio's Italian Restaurant in Seattle's Pioneer Square with Don on Saturday night. It has been on my *Seattle restaurants to try* list for nearly 2 years ago and it lived up to all the reviews that I had read. We had excellent authentic food, good wine and wonderful service.
• Watched The Nanny Diaries.
• Spent 4 hours on Sunday morning determined to fix the problems that I have been having with the external hard drive that stores my iTunes library. For no apparent reason it switched from F:\ to G:\ in the middle of last week. A quick google search reveled a fix in Windows, I then reinstalled the driver and I was back in business. I had to consolidate my library a few times and still have some individual errors but I was able to sync after 5 days which made me unbelievably happy.
• Watched Jersey Girl, Green Card and Dawn Anna all movies that my TiVo had recently recorded as suggestions when not recording game shows.
• Read numerous chapters on Eat Pray Love in an attempt to finish it before my Thursday night book club.
• Ordered pizza and groceries online so I didn't have to leave the house on Sunday.
• Missed forced-air heat as baseboard heaters just don't cut it when it's really, really, really cold outside.
• Waited for the snow that never came.

How was your weekend?

Early morning grocery shopping

Early morning grocery shopping, originally uploaded by JewellsinSEA.

Stopped by Safeway to pick up laundry detergent and was greeted by this sign at the only "open" checkstand. Now that is customer service!

Another ditty from my witty colleague (ditty from last week) regarding his next business trip.

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I'm really hating the burn ban right now. I miss my wood stove fire.

Therefore, I'd like to go to Las Vegas and get a room on the top floor of the Monte Carlo.

I hear the blackened salmon dish is yummy right now.

Their flaming drinks are on special as well.

Since my love life is flaming out up here, I might have a better time there.

I like the melted chocolates that they put on your pillow, when they turn down your bed.

Me as Fruit

You Are a Strawberry

You are friendly, outgoing, and well liked by many people. You are popular, but there's nothing you ordinary or average about you. You a very interesting person, and you have many facets to your personality. Sometimes you feel very conflicted. Your different sides of your personality pull at you. You are a very sensual and passionate person. You are fiery... you can't help it. In general, you keep your passionate side under wraps. You are only wild in private.

What Type of Fruit Are You?

Cold Clear Moon

Cold Clear Moon, originally uploaded by JewellsinSEA.

The cold clear weather is the perfect backdrop for a magnificent moon tonight.

Monday Afternoon Funny

Hope this makes you laugh as much as it made me laugh!

Memories

Sent to my phone by my brother as a reminder when we would "shoot the tubes" as kids. "Shooting the tubes" was our slang term for when we used the huge drainage pipes at the mouth of Parley's Canyon as our own personal waterslides.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Another weekend has flown by. The highlights:

• Dug through the bowels of my linen closet to find wine carriers to assist with moving Don's wine collection to his new apartment on the 4th floor (in the same building), and then headed over to his place to assist with the moving activities.
• Speaking of the wine carriers - I was amazed at how many had accumulated over the past 3 years, enough for 44 bottles of wine, I can be a pack-rat with the weirdest things sometimes.
• Enjoyed yummy Chinese food between loads up the elevator with Don, Kat and Nancy on Friday evening.
  
• More moving was the order of the day for Saturday. My brother Dave assisted with the heavy stuff, which was so nice.
  
• Took the longest, hottest shower in the history of the world after arriving home from the moving festivities.
• Relaxed on the couch Saturday evening, catching up on my TiVo recordings.
• Woke early Sunday with head congestion and sore legs which resulted in an early morning trip to Bartell Drugs to pick up some decongestants and then back to bed until 10.
• Met a friend for coffee in Ballard.
• Updated iTunes and organized my music a bit more. Also updated my iTunes Registry page with current info.
• Completed some household chores but not nearly everything that needed to be done.
• Enjoyed Red Snapper and Mashed Potatoes prepared by Don and Nancy on Sunday evening at Don's new apartment. It was perfect comfort food on a very cold night.

How was your weekend?

Be careful what you ask...

This is the response that I colleague of mine gave when faced with the question, "What are you doing this weekend?" He is nuts!

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Yeah, I've got some great plans. I'm going to watch the entire first season of "Get Smart." Then I'm going to the King's Table Buffet (if you wear a big overcoat with inside pockets you can sneak out a lot of thighs and legs) for a late dinner (5:30 pm). Tomorrow morning I'm going to Clare's Pantry for some biscuits and gravy, then Bingo. After that I'll see what's going on at the Super K-Mart. I'd ask a friend over to play checkers, but I don't have any anymore. I think tomorrow night I'll see if there is a Square Dance down at Seattle Center. Tomorrow night I'm going to see if you can stay up until 9:00.

I've been cutting coupons and there is a sale on Depends that starts Sunday at Albertson's. I think I'll watch cricket or bowling Sunday afternoon. I'm actually pretty conflicted about that. I've been beside myself. I may treat myself to a Hungry Man Salisbury Steak Sunday night.

That pretty much sums it up.

Who to vote for?

According to this candidate matching quiz, here are the candidates that I best matched with:

76% Hillary Clinton
76% John Edwards
76% Bill Richardson
75% Barack Obama
70% Chris Dodd
69% Mike Gravel
67% Joe Biden
61% Dennis Kucinich
53% Rudy Giuliani
47% John McCain
44% Tom Tancredo
41% Mitt Romney
41% Mike Huckabee
31% Fred Thompson
30% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Queen Anne Snow

And I thought that Seattleites were bad drivers in the rain but they are REALLY bad in the snow.

Queen Anne Snow

Something you don't often see.

Weekend Wrap-Up

I can't believe it's over already. The highlights:

• Babysat the *cutest nephew in the world* on Friday night which involved a whole lot of *genius* behavior including banging one's head against the wall and playing Choo-Choo (trains), Beep-Beep, (cars) and ball.
• Speaking of banging ones head against hard objects, did you know it's a sign of superior intelligence, well at least according to my brother it is.
• Following babysitting Don and I went straight to Rock Bottom Brewery for some adult beverages and pool. We shut the place down (which I have never done) only to find that the garage where the car was parked was closed. Luckily the security guard was down shortly to let us in so we could spring Don's car and go home.
• Slept in on Saturday morning.
• Had lunch at Red Mill. Yummy!
• Watched Grey's Anatomy Season 1 on DVD.
• Babysat again on Saturday night and accomplished the impossible by getting him to go to sleep after only 4 minutes of drama tears.
• Reorganized my iTunes library and created several new smart play lists in an attempt to fully enjoy my library and listen to the 7,872 songs that have never been played.
• Uploaded pictures from Christmas to Flickr.
• Took down the outdoor Christmas lights.
• Completed a bunch of household chores and futzing.

How was your weekend?

War Against Pink

I remember when Yoplait began their campaign to Save Lids to Save Lives campaign year ago, I carefully cleaned my lids and at the end of the month filled an envelope and sent them off to Yoplait. I was so proud that I was doing something to help the fight against breast cancer.

As a marketing person I have to admit that I thought the Yoplait campaign was a very clever one but that was before everyone else in the world jumped on the bandwagon. The infiltration of pink over the past years has just become too much for me to deal with. During Breast Cancer Awareness month last year I was shocked by the sheer numbers of products turning pink in the name of fighting cancer and began to get suspicious about how much money was really going to breast cancer research.

This morning I was reading one of my regular blog reads, A Sizeable Apple and noted an article she had written about the same thing. She refers to a website titled Think Before You Pink which exposes the real truth behind many of the pink campaigns out there including the amount of money donated and the company's commitment, or lack of, creating safe products. It's shocking how little money is being donated from many of these campaigns when you think about the sheer volume of sales generated. I will certainly use this as a tool when decided whether to buy pink products or not in the future.

4,159 visits

I have been tracking visitors to my site for 1 year now and ClustrMaps just archived the first year of data (map appears above) and the new map is nearly blank. I really enjoyed watching the little red dots appear this year and hopefully I will get even more visitors this year. :-)

iTunes Top 40

I just finished reorganized my iTunes library and the playlists that sync to my iPod in an attempt to better enjoy the 12,857 songs in my library. I have 7,872 that have never been played. I think that is because I listen to the same things/artists over and over and over and over again. I am interested to see how my stats on LastFM change over the next couple of months. Here is my Top 40 play counts as they stand right now, let's see what reorganization does to that.

1. Harbor - Vienna Teng
2. Shasta - Vienna Teng
3. Drunkard Logic - The Fat Lady Sings
4. Hope On Fire - Vienna Teng
5. City Hall - Vienna Teng
6. You Dance – Eastmountainsouth
7. The Tower - Vienna Teng
8. Nothing Without You - Vienna Teng
9. Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
10. Homecoming - Vienna Teng
11. Soul Meets Body - Death Cab For Cutie
12. Providence - The Fat Lady Sings
13. Feather Moon - Vienna Teng
14. Life Less Ordinary - Carbon Leaf
15. If I Had $1,000,000 - Barenaked Ladies
16. So Are You To Me – Eastmountainsouth
17. Forever My Friend - Ray LaMontagne
18. Streetcorner Symphony - Rob Thomas
19. Hard Times – Eastmountainsouth
20. Eric's Song - Vienna Teng
21. Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
22. Push - Sarah McLachlan
23. Winter – Eastmountainsouth
24. Dirty Little Secret – Sarah McLachlan
25. Enough To Go By - Vienna Teng
26. Chocolate - Snow Patrol
27. Celtic New Year - Van Morrison
28. A Girl And Her Horse - Carbon Leaf
29. Crooked Teeth - Death Cab For Cutie
30. Father & Daughter - Paul Simon
31. Unwritten Letter #1 - Vienna Teng
32. Whatever You Want - Vienna Teng
33. Blue Eyes Blue - Eric Clapton
34. The Atheist Christmas Carol - Vienna Teng
35. Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well - Mike Doughty
36. 1 Br/1 Ba - Vienna Teng
37. On Your Way – Eastmountainsouth
38. Blue Caravan - Vienna Teng
39. There She Goes - The La's
40. It Never Entered My Mind - Miles Davis

Sibling Fun

My brother Dave snapped the above shot and sent it to my phone this morning and hence began the following:

Dave: Dave's dork out Friday. These be my big monitors.
Jewells: Two monitors? Is that because you be uber smart?
Dave: Aren't first borns smarter?
Jewells: Abso-fucking-lutely
Dave: Then I need 2 monitors 2 be as smart as u
Jewells: Good point. That's why I only need one. :-)

Neon Frosting

Smears of frosting on the lid of the container.

Anniversary

Today marks a significant milestone in my life and it is a day that I have been waiting a very long time for.

Five years ago today I lay in a hospital bed as my oncologist walked into my room to tell me that the surgery, chemotherapy, numerous drugs and blood transfusions had worked, for all intensive purposes I was *cancer free.* Holding on to that *cancer free* declaration is the key to really beating this horrible disease. Today I am no longer a statistic, I am officially a member of the 42% of people are diagnosed with my type of cancer and live to celebrate 5-years.

I will mark today in a very ordinary fashion as it will be like any other Thursday. That in itself is a celebration as 5 years ago I was unable to do even ordinary things. I have spent a great deal of time recently reflecting on my journey and all of the different emotions I have been through. For the past week my mind has been racing with many different emotions including:

• Joy - for reaching this milestone!
• Relief - that I don't have to count down the years, months and days anymore.
• Anger - that I had to have cancer in the first place.
• Frustration - for the ways that my life is changed forever as a result.
• Gratitude - for having exceptional medical treatment and talents of wonderful physicians.
• Appreciation - for the path that cancer set me out on and where I am today.
• Love - for the people that have made a difference along the way.

I have also been thinking a great deal about the people that made a profound impact on me during the last 5+years. There are few words to express my gratitude, but I'm going to try anyway.

Elisa: Thank you for taking the lead when I didn't have the strength to do so, for giving me a home, spiritual support and unmeasurable love.

Jenna: Thank you for picking me up and brushing me off (literally) over and over again, for buying me hats, making me laugh, watching movies that I slept through and listening to me.

My Mom: Thank you for your unconditional love, for cooking all my favorite meals to keep me off TPN, listening to me and wiping away my tears.

Paige: Thank you for being next to me when I faced my darkest day, for listening to my "crazy talk" and crying with me.

Don: Thank you for giving me a safe place to share my feelings and my fears, for listening to me, for reminding me about the big picture and for never patronizing me.

Okay, that is enough "sap on tap" for today! I've got neon colored cupcakes on my desk so right now I think it's time to post this and take a coffee/cupcake break!

Cupcakes

I walked into my office to find these on my desk this morning.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Is it Monday already? The weekend was the perfect mix of activity and not. The highlights:

• Enjoyed a night at home alone on Friday night trying to get rid of a headache that had been annoying me since Thursday night. I tried to get to bed early which didn't work out thanks to the crazy wind storm.
• Speaking of weather, I hoped that we would get snow since the weather wonks had predicted it but it never happened.
• Worked for 5-hours on Saturday which helped me finish some of the tasks that have been lingering a bit too long on my to-do list.
• Had my car serviced and specifically asked that they replace my burned out headlight. When they were all done the guy helping me told me that there was nothing wrong with my headlight and so they didn't replace it. Upon getting to my car I immediately checked it out and sure enough, it was working. It hasn't worked in over a month so I was shocked! It stopped working 3 blocks later.
• Watched the 4th quarter of the Seahawks game which was definitely action packed!
  
• Had a yummy dinner with Don at the Hi-Life in Ballard. I ordered the Pumpkin Ravioli which was so good.
• Finished uploading all of the pictures I took during our Disney World vacation last month to Flickr.
• Speaking of Flickr, someone marked one of my pictures as a favorite and I got a my first comment this weekend. :-)
• Completed a bunch of household chores and began the process of un-Christmasing the house.
• Inspired by the cool weather and the fact that my mother was making one, I made Pot Roast for dinner on Sunday that was "STUPID good" according to Don.

How was your weekend?

My Nerd Type

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Science/Math Nerd (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren't this extreme, but you're in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don't worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.
Literature Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Musician
Social Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Anime Nerd
Drama Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

Legs

One of the charming features of the Hi-Life where Don and I had dinner tonight.

Friday Randomness

The work week has seemed extremely long this week even though it's only be a total of 3 1/2 days. Monday was a breeze and the day flew by. Wednesday through Friday have been a different story and have been extremely frustrating. I have been unbelievably busy but my task list has only grown as I keep getting pulled from my regular tasks to deal with emergent and difficult customer situations and deals that need closing. Don't get me wrong, I love to close deals but not when everything else just piles up.

I have been working on some *behind the scenes* improvements to my site this week as I menitoned in my post last week and I have some exciting news. Inspired by Don's Tumbld site, I have created one of my own called Jewells in Brief. The site consists of links that I have posted to del.icio.us, random ideas and thoughts that I have posted to Twitter, photos that I have posted to Flickr and then posts from this blog. I feeds update every hour and don't pay attention to the time on the postings as it is never accurate.

I have been busy this week uploading pictures to Flickr. While doing so noticed that you could activate statistics to monitor the activity (views, favorites etc) related to your photos, so I did. My statistics are depressing. According to the Flickr world my pics aren't interesting, they are rarely viewed and no one considers them "favs." :-( I am going to continue to upload the remainder of the pictures from our recent vacation to Florida and hopefully someone will find those interesting.

UPDATE: 01/05/08 10:58 p.m.
I just checked my Flickr stats for the past 24 hours and I have 227 views in the last 24 hours. I guess I should whine on my blog about my unpopularity more often. ;-)

Uptown Girl

You Are Uptown

You are classy, cultured, and well educated. You are an expert on the finer things in live. Your city girl persona loves all of the opportunities a city offers. But only in the best neighborhoods.

Are You An Uptown Girl or Downtown Girl?