Hilary's Blog...Enjoy!

wow

2007-08-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

How time flies, seriously. I think too much time has gone by to even try to catch everyone up at this point so I guess I will start over! I will post more later since I am at work right now, hee hee.

Anyhoo, have you signed up for Facebook yet??? www.facebook.com

Catching up!

2006-10-10T23:47:00.000-07:00

Has it really been that long since I updated my blog? So sorry peeps! A LOT has gone on over the past few months. Now I am going to have to jog my memory alllllllllll the way back to the end of July, oy vey! I don't have my Outlook calendar here to guide me! Well, I guess I can always go back and add more eh?

End of July, beginning of August time:

End of July, my friends Heather, Valina and I went to Sequim to go pick lavender. For those of you who have never heard of Sequim, let alone know how to pronounce it, Sequim ("S'kwim") means quiet waters in the native language of the S'Klallam tribe, a perfect name for this valley community located in the sun between the deep waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the breathtaking Olympic Mountains of Washington state. They are the second highest lavender producer in the world!!! You can read more here: http://www.lavenderfestival.com/

Ocho

2006-07-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

As many of you know I had to put down Ocho in the wee hours of May 2nd, 2006. He was on borrowed time and definitely made the most of it. May you rest pain free and frolic like a kitten Ocho. I love you and all of your 27 toes!

April/May 2006 in a nutshell

2006-06-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the month started as well as it could ever be since Tara, her husband Alex and I flew to Las Vegas to see Depeche Mode! We stayed at Paris hotel and scored an amazing deal since Tara and Alex travel so much.

Here are some pics from the weekend:

This is Alex and Tara doing Jell-O shots before we leave to go out the second night we were there. We made about 50 shots before we left for Vegas and packed them in little travel coolers! hee hee deeeeeeelish!

Rock on!

The night was just getting started....

For some reason I can not get the rest of the pictures to load, so here is the link to them http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f174/seattlehil/Vegas/

Here Tara and I are in the front of the Hard Rock Hotel, just hours before the concert!

We were soooooo close to the stage! It was outside in the Hard Rock Cafe Hotel parking lot! It was about 78 degrees.

Via the link, you will see s pic that was taken with my cell phone. Normally, a flight back from Vegas to Seattle is 2 hours and 25 mins, well ours was 6 1/2 hours. Still, today, I am not totally sure why it took so long but here is what happened:
1. We sat on the tarmac for a while because our flight was very heavy due to two hockey teams flying with us and all their gear
2. We ended up going back to the gate to re-fuel.
3. We sat again on the tarmac because we were infiltrated by a dust storm and had to wait for it to pass.
4. We finally took off. All this time the pilot had not been giving us too much info at all, like when we would arrive in Seattle, etc...
5. About 2 hours into the flight I noticed we started to descend. The pilot came on the speaker to notify us that we had to land in Portland to re-fuel. ugh!
6. We re-fuel and head for Seattle, again, the pilot not giving us a time as to when we would land.
7. About 25 mins later we start to descend into Seattle and FINALLY land only for the pilot to get on the speaker again to tell us to remain in our seats when we land because the Port of Seattle needed to board the plane and remove a "person of interest" first.
8. Oy vey, so, the police boarded and removed a young middle-Eastern looking woman from the plane. She walked down the isle quietly and looked down the entire time. The whole plane was silent.
9. Once she passed our row, the man sitting next to me said that she was in front of him at the airport and bought a one way ticket to Seattle in cash. Red flag?

So we made it home, in one piece, whew.

HOLY CRAP!

2006-06-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

OK Tina Davis, this is for you!

I am going to have to add blogs seperately so they appear in order :-)

So buckle up and get ready for the long awaited update!!!!!

Yipeeeeee!

wow

2006-05-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

Boy do I have a lot of catching up to do. I am not going to do it now but I wanted to find out if I could still even log into my account here! LOL

Hang tight! Updates are coming and they are well worth the wait!

Cheers.
-hil

Photobucket

2006-04-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

Passport to Woodinville Pictures!

2006-03-30T20:34:00.001-08:00

I will write more later but the pics can be on the PhotoBucket link http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f174/seattlehil/

Thurs March 16, 2006

2006-03-30T20:34:00.000-08:00

whoa! I just started typing 199.... Something, I think I am tired, or well, we had a wine tasting at work and I think I am a bit sleepy from that. I will get to that in a moment.

Tuesday March 28
Heather, Arianna and I went to a Wine Meetup which was meeting at Portalis in Ballard. I think 7 of us total showed up. It was fun. I like Portalis, cool place. Their tastings are $2.75 and found a tempranillo that was to die for from Spain from a winery called La Rioja Alta . I got lucky that evening and won the "door prize" which the even leader generously donated, a bottle of wine! Yeah for me! After we were done tasting we went to the Matador for some nibbles. What a nice way to spend a Tuesday evening!

Week of March 27th at BD&A
This week and next we have "Spring Fling". This is my first one but what it is all of BD&A breaks up into groups and puts on different fundraisers this week to raise money for the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. So today the Bank of America team and the Microsoft team put on a wine tasting. For $10 you can try all the wine you want. I think there were about 20+ wines. I tried 5 since I was driving.

My group, Marketing, is teaming up with Creative Services and New Biz Development and we are putting on a mini putt putt golf game next week in building C. We, Marketing, are responsible for 2 holes. We are doing a Tiki hole and the BD&A-hole, get it? LOL I wanted to mimic a uterus with each ovary being a hole, boy did we have a good laugh with that one, but we decided against it unfortunately. I will definitely take pictures next week.

The company also puts on a bowling night at at Kenmore Lanes and a talent show at a bar to raise money. Last year, BD&A raised $50,000!

Anyhoo, that is what is going on work right now.

This Saturday I am going to go to the annual Passport to Woodinville wine event! This is my first time and I can not wait!

Knitting Projects

2006-03-27T00:20:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of my most recent knitting projects:

Booga Bag knitted with Noro Kureyon yarn color 149 (brown/grey/taupe). This bag was so easy, even the most beginner knitter can do it! It took three washes for it to finally felt up the way I wanted it to.

These are booties and a hat I made for a friend's baby shower. The bootie pattern was given to me from a co-roker and the hat I just did myself, no pattern. The yarn is actually from Target! Since we don't know the sex of the baby yet, this green and yellow is perfect!

I still need to post a pic of my shawl, my first hat and some scarves!

In the meantime check out these cool knitting sites:
Village Yarn & Tea Shop, Shoreline, WA
Tuttie-Cutie-Fruity Hats
Pineapple Hat
DomiKNITtrix Patterns
Straw.com Patterns
Knitting Patterns on BlogSpot
Hello Yarn Patterns
Knitting Pattern Central
KNITTY.com

Sunday March 26, 2006

2006-03-26T21:48:00.000-08:00

I went to breakfast with Matt this morning. We went to Vera's. Yum.

We walked around a bit afterwards and popped into Cupcake Royale. This is a cupcake only bakery and coffee spot. He got some cupcakes to go.

We then sauntered down to the Ballard Farmers Market, a year round marketing seeling everything from organic veggies to handmade jewelry. I love going there, even if I don't buy anything, the smells and the people are enough.

I finished up my day with a trip to the dog park, grocery store then I finished installing my new Canon Pixma iP4200 printer! Yeah!

Saturday March 25, 2006

2006-03-26T19:01:00.000-08:00

Today started off sore. I had a biopsy of a mole on my back and the doc took out an 8mm chunk which left me with 3 stitches.

I got my oil changed at noon then met Serena at 1:30 so we could carpool to Jennifer Spanton's first Pampered Chef party at 2pm. Here are some pics from the party:

Oy Vey! It has been so long!

2006-03-25T10:38:00.000-08:00

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:

Thurs March 16, 2006

2006-03-12T20:13:00.001-08:00

Hello!

Yessssss, it is Thursday evening! I had a four day week this week since I took Monday off and boy did I need a day off! I tend to work and work and work and not take vactions. Why you ask? Well, one, vaca's cost money and two, hard to find peeps to go on vaca's with. BUT, I do take a few three dayers here and there.

My next trip is to Vegas with Tara & Alex to go see Depeche Mode at the Hard Rock Cafe April 30th. Yes, it will be my second time seeing them in 6 months, it would be more if I had the money and the time, trust me! LOL For those of you reading this and have known me for a while know how much of a DM fan I am. I was thinking about it the other day, I mean really thinking about it, and it is funny because there aren't too many things that I truly have been a fan of for this many years (except for earl grey tea with milk and sugar). It is like I transform back into a teenager when it comes to them! I have fantasies(no,not sexual)of meeting David Gahan and being a bumbling idiot. You know how you see people meet stars and they get dumbstruck, well, that would be me. Not to many other people I can think of that would leave me speechless. For all the latest and greatest DM info click here. For more on Dave click here.

So anyhoo, to say the least I am VERY excited to go see them. Alex got us tickets from a broker in Santa Rosa. I found them on the internet and Alex sealed the deal. I think the are due left of the stage in the reserved seating bleachers. I beleive our seats are East Row D Seats 89-91. Here is the seating chart for the Theatre Under The Stars at the Hard Rock Hotel which is an ampitheater!

My mom bought her ticket to come visit me over memorial day weekend! YEAH!!! Just is girls! My mom wants me to make her some jell-o shots! hahaha Just name your flavor mom!

OK, I am signing off for now.

Good night!

Monday March 13, 2006

2006-03-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

Hello!

Wow, I have a lot to catch up on! Let's start with last week:

Monday 3/6: was a regular day, nothing major to report I guess since I can not remember anything! LOL

Tuesday 3/7: I had a doctor appt. in the morning, all is well.

Wednesday 3/8:

8:50am - I had a dermatologist appt. in the morning. I have not been to a real dermo in forever. She was located in downtown Seattle on the 14th floor of a medical bldg. When I walked into the office I felt almost like I was walking onto the TV show Doctor 90210. The office was amazing! Sweeping views of Seattle on either side of the office, coffee and tea (self-serve)service, and definitely designed by an interior decorator. I am usually a magazine junkie but I could not stop staring out the windows! Anyhoo, the appt went fine. I have to have a mole biopsied next week. They gave me a huge bag of over the counter skin care samples, a prescription for minocyn and a topical cream called azelex. I am 35 and still dealing with zits, unbelievable!

12pm - I attended BD&A's weekly Twisted Stitchers lunch meeting. I think we have about 12 people now!

8pm - The long long long awaited season premiere of America's Next Top Model started! Total brain candy!!

Thursday 3/9:

7:30am - I carpooled with Dave today. This is a typical picture of a morning when he arrives at my house to carpool. Sophie drenches him in kisses and gets a few snuggles in before we leave. Today we were dropping her off at daycare. Dave dressed her. It was too cute that they matched.

7pm - I went to Neighbors on Capital Hill for my SeattleWorks TeamWorks orientation. I had signed up for a seven month, once a month, comittment to volunteer with a group of "30-somethings". All the groups met tonight at 7pm. We started off with an ice-breaker activity then disperssed into our groups. 12 of the 15 peeps in my group were there and seemed pretty neat! I am definitely looking forward to our first event which is this Saturday the 18th. As it turns out, there is a woman with whom I work with who is also on a team, not the same as mine, who has also signed up with her boyfriend! It was so cool to see her there!

The weirdest part of the evening was when I got to talking to a gal in my group whose name is Heather. She said she lived in Ballard and as it turns out she lives exactly 10 blocks from me. To make a long story short, it happens that she lives in my friend Lindsay's old apartment! The funniest thing is that Lindsay moved out because she was moving in with her then fiance, now husband, of whom she met when I took her to join a TeamWorks with me exactly two years ago! Small world eh? Is this supposed to mean something? Anyhoo, Heather seems cool and as everyone knows I love meeting new peeps so I can not wait until we do more stuff!

Friday 3/10:

All I know is that this seemed like a looooooooooooooong week. I was planning on making the Jell-O shots tonight and was lucky to have Arianna and Dave join me! We started the evening by shaving Dave's head, running to the liquor store, Dave making dinner then me making about 500(exaggerated) Jell-O shots which consisted of: Strawberry Banana Jell-O and coconut rum, Orange Jell-O and dark bacardi (Alex's favorite)

Lemon Jell-O with citron vodka and a squirt of whip cream on the top

Saturday 3/11: Cindy arrived about 2pm. We then ran some last minute errands then prepared for the first game night of 2006 which was starting at 7pm. Who partook? Tara and Alex, Cindy, Mikey, Sarah anb Gina and Michael. We played Catch Phrase, Scattergories, That 80's Game and Balderdash. We drank a lot of wine, ate yummy shancks and digested A LOT of Jell-O shots! No worries Tara! I have a reserve that I am bringing to work tomorrow!

I have pics to add but blogger is having abit of heartburn or something right now so they are not loading, hang tight!

This is what it looked like outside my house at 5pm today, March 13th

March 4, 2006

2006-03-04T14:54:00.000-08:00

Wow! I went almost a week without posting, boohoo. What a week though, ugh.

Busy at work: SB left the Marketing Dept for Publications on Wednesday, March 1. It is very weird without her. You know how life is always changing and we all need to roll with the flow, but there is something about work dynamics that when things change, rolls are re-defined, people move on, new people come on board, it is always an adjustment. I welcome challenges and change, don't get me wrong, but staff adjustments for are team are HUGE because we only have 4 peeps total on our team (now 3). Personality and energy dynamics change so much. We do not have a new coordintor in the hopper yet, so stay tuned!

Personally, this week was very emotional for me, which sucked, because I have been pretty damn happy and solid for quite a while now. Without getting into specifics, I had two instances that really hurt me happen in one day. One had to do with being rejected and the other was feeling like second best, which in a sense are the same thing and that is why is was so hard for me I think, a double whammy in 24 hours! But basically, I felt unappreciated and disposable. Whether the actions come from friends or strangers, it feels like being kicked in the stomach when you are already down. Like all your good deeds, true concerns, and selfless acts of friendship mean absolutely nothing. So in a nutshell, it was a bad day. I resolved most of it, some of it I could not do anything about but find resolution within myself. It is just so hard when you do things out of the goodness of your heart, just because it is what you do and it seems like it means nothing to others.

Last night, Friday, was Knit Night at Village Yarn and Tea in Shoreline, WA. The first Friday of every month they keep the store open late and from 6-9 people can come in and socialize, knit, shop, drink tea, eat, etc... It is so much fun! Last night I think we had 8 of us. It has become quite and event, so much so that Lisa Hoggart left her husband and kids at home and celebrated her birthday with us, knitting! My wrap is coming along nicely! Two more balls to go and I am done! Yeah!

Looks like they had a visitor from the Seattle PI write a review on them! http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/food/259820_coffee17_villageyarntea.html

I bought a cool little magazine called Knit.1 You can see it here: http://www.knit1mag.com/ Seems totally cool! I can not wait to read it! And check this out tomorrow: Don't miss the premiere episode of Oxygen Network's brand new show, Stitchcraft, featuring Vogue Knitting editor extraordinaire Adina Klein! First episode airs Sunday, March 5, at 3pm.

Anyhoo, here are some pics for the day:

Ocho's new bed which Sophie keeps pulling off the trunk so she can squeeze what she can into it which isn't much!

This is what it looks like outside right now.

Sunday Feb 26th 2006

2006-02-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

Is it Sunday already? Oy vey how time flies!

Friday I went to my very first poker party where we played Texas Hold 'Em. Dave Brown taught me how to play on Thursday evening so at least I had some sort of idea what the hell I was doing! I brought cream cheese, apricot preserves and water crackers to eat. I also brought Three Olives Cherry Vodka and Coca-Cola, soooooo yummy! In fact we basically polished off the bottle by the end of the night!

I would guess there were about 15 people there and I stayed in the game until the final four!! Woo Hoo! By 12:30am I was spent and bet it all, and lost. Either way I was proud of myself for hanging in so long for being a newbie! If you want to learn how to play Texas Hold 'Em click here. I am always up for a game or two! So I think I was home in bed, nicely buzzing at about 1:30am. I know I am getting crazy in my old age! LOL Thanks Dave for driving!

Saturday was a lazy day so I knitted, watched a few movies, ran a few errands wth Arianna. I then made dinner, drank wine and watched Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (with Arianna). If you have not seen Harold & Kumar I highly reccomend it. If you are high, you will enjoy it even more.

Here is the status of my current knitting projects:

I felted my first bag and now I just need to add the handles (pictured above the bag, looks like dreadlocks!)

This project was simple and I highly suggest making one since it is quick and only requires a knit stitch. You can find the instructions here:

I added a star button to my cell phone holder

(thanks to Arianna for helping find a button)

I would say I am about 1/3 way done with my first shawl. I may turn it into a poncho depending on how it turns out once it is off the needles since it is hard to gauge when it is all bunched up.

+ I unraveled Dave's scarf because I was trying to do ribs but is squashed up the scarf so it was super thin. I think I am going to try a seed stitch for the next one (no pic, I unraveled it before I took one)

Here is a pic of Sophie in her bed in the kitchen, just chillin'. It was nice (but grey) out this morning when Arianna, Sophie and I went for a walk to get coffee at Cafe Fiorre.

It started to rain about 2 hours after we got back.

This is what it looks like outside right now in front of my house.

Now I cam getting ready to pick Jack up for dinner. He is in town for 2 days for business. We are going to go to a restaurant called Lark. My mom, Jack & I went there once before and I have to day it was one of my top ten meals...ever!

more to come.....

Thanks Tina!

2006-02-22T21:16:00.000-08:00

Tina is here now and she is going to help me figure this formatting thing out :-)

Last night Sarabeth(aka SB) had a "Knit Night" at her cute apartment in Bothell. She truly is the hostess with the mostess! She had baked cookies, cut up cheese and apples and had a nice array of teas and a ton of wine!

Not only was last night the first "knit night" but it was also time for me to felt my first knitting project! I know! Crazy times! Here is a picture of the purse before it went into the washing machine:

I do not have a picture of the finished Booga Bag yet since it is still at SB's apartment drying with a manicotti box inside of it to keep its shape.

But I do have a picture of SB pictured below with the bottom of her Booga Bag that she started last night!

This is what Tina is working on tonight:

She is making her second wristband (I thought it was a Smurf but it's Dig Dug!) She is making for the Classic Video Game Expo which is coming this weekend.

A quick note on Weds afternoon 2/22/06

2006-02-22T15:33:00.000-08:00

So I am sharing the link to here with my friends and family, hee hee, mom & Jack, be prepared for a little more insight to your daughter.

Please bear with me while I fumble my way through here and figure out how to post/add/update items. Tina is coming over tonight so I will have her give me a tutorial.

I have a few more pics to post so hang tight until I download them!

Until later, peeps!

Cheers!
-hil

Sunday Feb 20, 2006

2006-02-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

I am already in a bad mood and I have no idea why! Then, to top it off I wrote a whole big blog on my weekend here with links and pics, only for it to be erased, ugh. So here is my weekend in a nutshell.

Sat- car would not start, missed meeting my friends at Magnuson for the Boston Terrier Meetup and breakfast. Steve and Minda came over to my house and waiting with me, then we all went to the dealership and I picked up the loaner car and we went to Vera's for breakfast. We then walked around downtown Ballard then picked up Sophie and went and got a coffee from Caffe Fiore and popped on down to Golden Garden's Dog Park so Sophie could finally run around and play.

Tina was supposed to come over that evening but was too tired so I started a new knitting project, a shawl! I got 7 balls of the coolest yarn at the Seattle Knitters Guild Holiday Party. I am using a stitch called the Pillar Open Work. It is turning out pretty cool so far but now I am wondering if I made it wide enough. I can not tell how wide it will be since I am knitting it on curcular needles and so the project is all bunched up. I am using size 15 and cast on 120 stitches. I guess we will see soon! LOL
Fuzzy Felt Yarn

Today I got up about 9:30, made blueberry muffins and tea and started to knit a little. Then I put some laundry in and got side tracked in the yard. Well 2 1/2 hours later and a lot of scratches and nicks on my hands, I mamaged to clean up the backyard and the front yard! What a difference!

Right side of front garden

Left side of front garden

I then had some lunch and dropped some items off at the Goodwill.

So why am I in such a shitty mood??

Ocho lazing around on Sunday