Oy Vey! It has been so long!

Greetings!

Wow! I let this one go too long without a post! I have a lot of catching up to do so lets get started shall we?

Friday March 17, 2006 St. Patrick's Day!

The work day was a regular day except for I went to lunch with my friend Steve Zwerin and a woman I work with, Susan Thackery. First, you need a little background: I met Steve in the fourth grade, he was in third grade I believe. Steve and I, and his parents and my parent are very good friends to this day! Susan works in HR at BD&A. Steve and Susan are both deaf.

A few months back when Steve's parents were visiting we all went out to dinner and Steve was telling me that he sits on a Board for a deaf school in Bothell call the Listen and Talk School, which happens to be on my way to work. What is so unique about the school is that it provides auditory and oral speaking skills to hearing impaired children, instead of teaching them Amercian Sign Language. Steve never learned how to sign. He was always in "hearing" or "regular" schools, like the kind you and I went to. He was never taught ASL, neither was Susan. Long story short, I thought what a neat idea it would be to introduce Susan and Steve since it seems that a lot of deaf people are taught to use ASL.

So the three of us went to Racha Thai in Woodinville and it was so amazing to see how thrilled they were to meet each other. Neither of them have any deaf friends. Funny thing is I have 5 friends who are deaf! They both said it is like meeting someone in a "club" where they have so much in common. The two of them talked about what it was like growing up deaf and how people treated them or reacted to them. They even took out their hearing aids and compared them! LOL Steve briefed us on the school and both Susan and I said we would be interested in volunteering. If you are too let me know! Thanks Steve and Susan for educating me more on YOUR world!

Being St. Patty's day Tara, Alex, Shawn, Tom, Bev and I went out after work. We started of at the newest edition to Ballard called The Bal Mar. The drinks were soooooooooo strong and the food was WAY overpriced and tiny! We got bread and cheese, well it was literally one slice of bread and two little pats of cheese for $7! So we headed across the street to a Puerto Rican restaurant called Sofrito Rico. This place is THE BEST! Whoever is reading this and is local YOU HAVE TO GO! Tara andI had two Rum-Grias...each! Deeeeelicious! After dinner we headed down the street to The Tractor Tavern which is a well known for its cool music offerings. My newest friend Heather met us there. We had a blast and I think I made it into bed at about 1:30am. hee hee


Saturday March 18, 2006
Today was my SeattleWorks team first poject. We were to meet at a glass shop in the Seward Park area of town. So, I picked Heather up at 9:15am, totally hung over and in need of coffee, bad. We got a little lost but not too bad. We found a starbucks on the way and I got my favorite, a grande 2% almond latte. I was a happier camper, but still hung over. So we made it to the glass place, met our group and followed Chris, our 30-something group leader to where he thought the project was, well about 25 minutes later and only 2 miles from where we originally met, he found our project corner.

We were to clear out about 1/2 a block of solid blackberry and rose bushes so to make is easier for drivers to see oncoming cars and put in a little garden and bench for the locals to enjoy. I do not have any before pictures but here are the during and after pics!

Making Headway! What we are cutting away was all the way out to the sidewalk!
Chop chop chop Dig dig dig Cut cut cut

Look Ma! I'm working! Ericka is focusing

WE DID IT!

Needless to say it was an amazingly rewarding day. The best was when the locals came up to us and thanked us personally for making their neighborhood look nicer. I went home and collapsed for the rest of the day. :-)

Weekof March 20, 2006...

It was a good week! Busy as usual. I made the mistake on Thursday of telling Tara I was wearing two different shoes! Mind you they were VERy similar, both black boots. Well Tara felt the need to email the company and tell them, all in fun of course. Well, I told her she needs to watch her back and boy did I get her back. I can not say what I did right now in case she reads this, but I will update you tomorrow :-)

Here are a few randome pics for your perusal and amusement that I took last week:

Wednesday March 22, 2006

I carpool with Dave Brown at least 2 times a week. This is him driving.

This is where we stop every morning for coffee

This is Gina, our Marketing Coordinator. We ate lunch outside because there was SUN but about 54 degrees.

Thursday March 23, 2006:

"The" Boots. See! They are not that different and at 7:30am in the morning with the lights off you can see it is easy to get them mixed up!

This is what it looked like outside my house on March 24th, 2006: