I don't know if anybody watches Monday Night Football, but if you did you probably saw how horribly it snowed in Seattle. Now, for Minnesota that snow wouldn't be bad, but for Seattle it wasn't so great. Somehow during the height of the snow I ended up on a bus that was in a ditch. The bus driver managed to navigate it out of the ditch, and set up safely back down the hill, but that was an adventure I won't soon forget.
Today I woke up to a good two inches covering my (rental) car and I drove this lovely car very carefully to the train station. No accidents, but there was a bit of ice. From the South Sound up to Seattle there is at least 2-4 inches of snow on the ground... but you hit Seattle and it clears up! My coworkers probably wondered why I cancelled dinner with them last night to attempt to get home, but the three hour commute time it did take me seemed better than the 5 hour commute times I was hearing about elsewhere in the Sound.
So, hurrah, snow! You have created a winter wonderland (sorta).
I thought I would provide everybody with some statistics for HIV and Hep C (known as HCV). I found these statistics surprising because you hear so much about HIV but it isn't nearly as prevelent as HCV.
HIV/AIDS cases between 1982 - 2006 (October) 15,897
HCV cases 2000-2006 (June) 31,104 which does not account for Department of Corrections, Tribes, VA or informed, well educated providers testing all those who may have HCV as an underlying cause of other diseases - diabetes, hypothyroidism, cardiovascular disease, etc.
Deaths based on Vital Statistics numbers - 2000-2004 HIV/AIDS 930
2000-2004 HCV 2,230
Here is the link to the National Hepatitis C Institute if you want to do further research.
That's right I am devoting an article to this before I even start work this morning. This probably isn't a good sign for my day, but I'll take the good with the bad.
1. There is no Starbucks on my way to work. There is no Starbucks on the train. Starbucks needs to build more Starbucks that are more convient pour moi.
2. They run the air on the train constantly so that it is always blowing my hair, which is itching my face. There is no need to run the air so high!
3. Men who respond to my accidents with pick up lines. When I step on your foot and apologize I do not want to hear 'you walk on the tops, I'll walk on the bottoms' accompanied with a wink. Seriously dude, I'm married. And you need new pick up lines.
4. It's raining and I am wearing glasses, need I say more?
That's actually all I have, now that I have a nice Tully's Peppermint Mocha and I am sitting at my desk I am feeling less annoyed. I hope you aren't annoyed today - remember, it's Thursday!
Since I've been married I have been meaning to cook and clean more. However, the cleaning and reorganizing of the house has take a lot of my time. On Saturday night I got part of my tub scrubbed down (a big shout out to Ka-Boom which makes my scrubbing easier), seriously the tub is dirty, technically it still is dirty, it's just less dirty. And, during a visit to my mother-in-law's this weekend, she provided me with a lovely cookbook that has simple receipes. You can't underestimate simple food. I don't want to have to dance a jig around my roast for it to come out right.
Tonight I tried to make Broiled Steak with Herb Butter and Twice Baked Potatoes. The problem was the timing, I had to make the potatoes first because they take such a long time to initially cook (about one hour), and baked potatoes hate me. Seriously, I haven't gotten one to cook properly since Sophomore year in college. And tonight was no exception, they were still raw in the middle when I pulled them out at the appropriate time (about one hour). Now is the point where people try to give me advice. Please feel free, but know that I have done it properly. The potatoes were forked, put in the oven at 400F and baked for an hour and still raw in the middle when they were pulled out. I hate them, I will mash them always in the future - or nuke them. My microwave has a lovely 'bake potatoe' button I would love to try. The steaks turned out wonderfully and were tasty. We have some raw ones that I stuck in the freezer and I will try again later to make sure it is tasty. I solved the 'accompainment' problem by cooking boxed mashed potatoes, not amazing but not horrible.
Next on the cooking adventure: Gingerbread. I am hoping to try this out tomorrow, I was going to do it tonight but I need a 8x10 pan. I have never heard of this size: I am in possession of an 8x8 and a 5x9, but no 8x10. If I had two 5x9 pans I would try it, but alas it was not to be. Anyway - tomorrow I will buy a new glass pan!
As I mentioned in the comments of my last entry: after getting the car checked out further we found out it was a leaky head gasket. (expensive!) So Scott asked that Toyota cover part of it since the car is only 5,000 miles out of warrenty and he is a loyal Toyota customer AND this is the second head gasket in a truck he has owned from them. They complied, amazingly, and offered to pay about half of the cost.
Hence, the replacing of the head gasket commenced. But what is this? When they get in there and have replaced the head gasket, suddenly they cannot put the engine block back together again because the head bolts are stripped. We need a new engine block!
This entire episode is getting more and more expensive, with the engine block being around $6,000. However, Toyota is wonderful, and we are only paying about $900 to get this whole episode of the repairs behind us (excluding our previous replacment of the water pump). This is because the head bolts appear to have been stripped during the installation of engine at the factory (I mean how often do you take an engine apart in a normal vehicle?). Therefore Toyota is paying for it. I have to say I am proud of this, I think if it was a Ford or a Chevy they would pretty much say 'screw you sucker'.
Now the only issue is that the head bolts being stripped in the factory probably cause the entire issue in the first place. Since it was stripped it didn't create a tight seal in the engine block and cause overheating... eventually. I am happy that Toyota is paying for any of it, because I know how screwed we could be and compared to the total cost $900 isn't much to spend.
Poor Scott, today was his birthday and it wasn't a very good one. First his car overheats and we have to drop it off at Toyota and expect to pay lots of money to have it fixed. Update on that: we got a water pump replaced for about $400 and some other stuff done which raised the total amount up considerably.
So Scott had to wake up early this morning and drive me to the train station, which he enjoyed immensly, and then come back home and drive to work. As he was driving my lovely vehicle to work, he was turning left (as people do) and the truck behind him accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake (the driver was reaching for his coat in the backseat). Needless to say, the back of my car looks a little worse for the wear and will take at least $3600 to repair. Scott was late to work and still managed to get an estimate during his lunch hour, ain't he a great hubby?
And after coming up to pick my up after my extended day at work he noticed his car was still overheating. So we had to drop it off at Toyota again, and pray it's just something small this time.
Warning, this link does speak and you need to have your speakers on to get any of the jokes. It is pretty amusing, just thought you'd all need a perk up for your Sunday evening... in case you weren't dreading work enough already:
No, I am not writing yet another article about my mental health. Today was yet another Saturday filled with fun-ness (which I am pretty sure isn't a word). I woke up early to make it to the step kids soccer games, in the rain no less. Though we were lucky, all year we didn't have to sit out in the actual rain. But today was a special day, the LAST day of soccer (technically the step daughter has one more game, but we won't be here for it). And after the games we departed to my mom's house to celebrate Scott's birthday which happens on Monday. The plan was to go antiquing in a quaint town up north and then head to dinner and dessert at some local restaurants.
Unfortunately, after a Mercedes attempted to run us off the road, our lovely 2003 Toyota Highlander (not my vehicle) decided was about time to overheat. We pulled off the freeway and filled up on some coolant, and even added in a quart of oil for good measure. (Granted, I was sitting in the car during this time.) We got back on the road and, thinking everything was good, made it another ten miles before the car overheated again. We pulled over and called Toyota, the closest one to us, and of course they couldn't help us since it was already 2pm on a Saturday. So we decided we had to go home and drop it at our Toyota dealership, however after driving another five minutes, albeit the other direction, it was apparent we were not going to make it. We have AAA and after waiting for about a hour the tow truck came and we finally got home at 5pm, and home is such a relief! Tonight Scott is going to take a look at the truck and see if he can flush the coolant system before we drop it off at the Toyota dealership. Hopefully it isn't anything big!
Oh, and poor Scott's birthday plans weren't really fulfilled, but it should be fine. Now he has to share a birthday celebration with me, and Thanksgiving.