Finally...

...a day off! This last week was a long stretch. I worked 8 days without a day off. Which wouldn't be too bad, except during those 8 days I worked 115 hours. Needless to say, I had to skip out on the Cure cover band Adam had tickets for and I slept for 13 hours Saturday night. Sunday we went to Kobey's Swap Meet. I hadn't been to a swap meet since I was a kid and we used to go whenever we'd come to San Diego to visit Grandma and Grandpa. It was great, we went with the goal of getting some art work for our living room, and within 5 minutes we had found the perfect pictures. I was all set to use my bargaining skills to convince the guy to sell us both pictures for $5, but when I asked how much they were and he said $2 each, I must say I was actually disappointed as I handed over my $4. I would post pictures, but I have lost the cord that connects my camera to my computer, so my pictures are stuck on my camera for the time being. We also found some mixing bowls, a tape measurer, a grill brush and a fish bowl. I found a sleeper sofa that I think would be very nice in our guest room and I'm trying to convince Adam that it is a good idea. But it is hard to justify spending money on things while we are trying to pay for a wedding. Speaking of the wedding, we are making headway on the planning. We have a venue, a photographer and a band. We should have a caterer by the end of the week. And stay-tuned, the wedding website is in the works and will be unveiled once I have more than 3 entries on it.

This is my last week in the ICU. While I really enjoy working here, the call schedule is killing me. I spend a few hours a day at home, I miss Adam, and I am falling way behind in my knitting! There are babies being born, and I have at least 3 different baby gifts in the works. It would be nice to finish them before the kiddos arrive. As of Friday I have two months of research, which I am really excited about. I can't wait to get back in the lab, and it will be nice to have weekends free. The rest of this month looks to be pretty busy. I'm going to Palm Springs on Friday for a conference. I need to submit my licensing application. I need to finish my fellowship applications. I need to find a wedding dress. But I will get to sleep in my own bed every night. And I can turn my pager off for two whole months. Yay!

Wedding Planning

We've narrowed down the wedding to two possible venues with two very different feels. I know which way I'm leaning but so as not to bias my readers, I will keep my opinions to myself.
Option 1: Rays Boathouse--a very nice seafood restaurant on Puget Sound. The ceremony would be at a park up the hill, overlooking the sound and Olympic mountains. This would be a more traditional wedding reception. Pros: it is on the water, it's in Ballard (our favorite Seattle neighborhood), it comes with it's own wedding planner and the food is yummy. Cons: it's a little small and tucked in between two big restaurants and their associated parking lots.

Option 2: Fox Farm Lavender Farm on Vashon Island. A beautiful garden on a little island a short ferry ride from Seattle. Both ceremony and reception would be here. This would be a more casual, but still beautiful reception. Pros: beautiful flowers would require little additional decoration, big space, private and we get the place for the entire day. Cons: we have to arrange our own caterer and do the set up/tear down ourselves. Guests would also have to take a ferry to ceremony, which could be fun, but might be a hassle depending on people's opinions of ferries.

Here are photos:

I would love to hear opinons!

Hot! Hot! Hot!

It is hot this weekend. Very hot. Ninety degrees upstairs. I'm hanging out downstairs trying to get some air moving through here, but we only have windows on the east facing side of our house, so you can't get any air movement. What does one do when you have the weekend off but it is too hot to move?

Adam took off for Sequoia National Park, but I had to stay in town as I'm on cross cover this weekend (I get called in if anyone gets sick). So I had a little party. I had some friends over, and we had a great time. We played a mean game of Monopoly (yes, I'm old and somewhat pathetic). I also made lemon meringue pie, but it was just to hot out--the lemon part wouldn't set. The meringue was good though.

Today I bought some wedding magazines. I'm really overwhelmed by all the planning that needs to be done. We still haven't picked a date or a venue (that's on the schedule for this weekend!), which really needs to happen before we do anything else since that is pretty much going to determine our budget. I am resistent to compromise on the venue (or food!) but am completely willing to cut corners on other elements in order to have my wedding where I want it to be (and I think Adam is on board with that plan!). To that point, I also purchased Bridal Bargains, which comes highly recommended. We'll just take it one step at a time, and I'm sure it will all come together sooner or later.

And knitting. What better way to spend your day when it is 90 degrees out, than playing with wool? Current projects:

Baby hat for a friend of Adam's:

It's hard to see without a good close up picture (and my camera just doesn't take good close ups), but it is a sample of various stitches. Once it is finished, it should look something like a jester hat.

Baby blanket for Adam's sister and their upcoming baby:

It looks poufy because I'm knitting it on circular needles. That's a pocket in the middle. Once I'm done (which hopefully will be soon, because quite honestly, this is a very boring project), I'll knit a little bear to stick in the pocket.

Progress on the Lizard Ridge Afghan:

My camera takes horrible pictures indoors. I can't figure out how to fix the lighting, so you can't quite get the full effect of the (almost!) completed afghan, but the close up gives a good look at what the individual squares look like.

Next week I'm off to Austria. It feels like this trip has been in the planning for so long, it's hard to believe I leave a week from Tuesday! I have several other knitting projects sitting in a box in the closet, which I'll probably take to Austria with me. It will give me something to do on the train to Vienna.

Getting hitched!

After 3 years (and approximately 25 days), Adam proposed! He tried so hard to surprise me, and I tried so hard to let myself be surprised, but given my inherently suspicious nature, I made it very difficult for both of us.

He had been in Seattle the weekend before, so we hadn't seen each other for a few days. Monday morning was my day off, and before Adam left for work, he asked if I wanted to meet him for dinner. My suspicions were immeditately aroused, as Adam never asks me to go to dinner. I usually have to drag him kicking and screaming on anything resembling a date. To his credit, he always claims my cooking is so much better than anything we could get in a restaurant, so why should we go out? As the day progressed, I went about my errands. I was taking our recycling to the appropriate drop off site (can you believe we don't have curbside recycling? And given that it was ingrained upon us in Seattle to recycle anything and everything, we collect our recyclables in the garage for periodic trips to the recyling drop-off sites). I went to put something int he back seat, and found a bag with some of Adam's clothes in in. Since I had picked him up at the airport the night before, I initially thought he had just left it in my car last night. But that didn't make sense, why would he be carrying a change of clothes in an Ann Taylor bag? When I got home later that afternoon, I IM'd him, asking why his clothes were in my car. His reply: "I don't know what you are talking about." Now I knew he was up to something, but still didn't know what. But I decided to let him have his surprise, and I stopped asking questions.

That evening I met him at work, and we walked to a very nice seafood restaurant down the street: The Fishery. It was a very nice dinner, and afterwards we went for a walk along the beach taking in the sunset:

We continued onto a pier, where there is a hotel out over the water. As we were walking, Adam was telling me of his new plan: to be more romantic. As he told it, he had realized that he would never be able to do anything romantic without arousing my suspicions that he will be proposing. He had decided to be more romantic in order to catch me off gaurd when he did finally propose. It seemed reasonable to me, and at that point I decided whatever he was up to, he wasn't planning on proposing that night. We were walking back up the pier towards the car, when Adam turned towards one of the hotel cottages. "Where are you going?" I asked, "you can't in there!" as he walked through the gate marked "PRIVATE." "Yes we can," he said. "We are staying here tonight." I reacted in a way that I'm sure Adam was not expecting (or was expecting I guess, given my dislike of surprises): "What are you talking about? I can't stay here! I need to be at work at 7am!" Eventually however, he was able to convince me to stay.

As I looked around our cottage I saw a small box sitting on the bed. I opened it, and found the perfect ring:

Adam asked, I said yes, and there you have it. We're getting married!