5-Year Plan

So, I've got the next few years of our life all figured out. I just have to convince Robert to go along with it all. Tell us what you think.

We're going to get out of Seattle as soon as we finish up our work here. I'm hoping that is within the next year. I would love to move at the end of our 9-month lease, next March.

At that point, we put all of our stuff in a U-Haul, take it to Utah, and hang with family and friends for a few weeks. We haven't seen our families in ages, and we haven't spent a good solid chunk of time with them for years. It would be nice to just be there with no deadlines, no obligations, so we can just see all the new babies and partners and houses and everything. Then we leave our stuff in storage, bribe some of the aforementioned family and friends to watch our kitties for a while, and take off with one-way tickets to Guatemala.

Why Guatemala? Lots of reasons. For one, I'm sick of being pretty good in Spanish, but not fluent. I want to just learn it! I want to speak it naturally! I know I'm close, and I feel like a little immersion would be enough for me.

Guatemala is uniquely suited for this because it has loads and loads of language schools. There is one in particular, PLQ, that seems perfect. It's cheap, it offers one-on-one classes and meals and housing with a local family, and it has a radical orientation towards local ownership and social-movement building.

I envision us taking classes there for 3-4 weeks. I've heard this is enough time for someone who knows no Spanish to get the conversation basics down (Robert has long wanted to learn, but hasn't had a convenient opportunity to do so). And I think it would be enough time for me to feel confident striking out on our own in the region.

After school, I'd want to wander the region for a while, possibly working on a farm, or even volunteering with the Guatemala Solidarity Project, a movement of poor campesinos trying to stop privatization of their lands.

I see this phase of the plan as lasting 3-6 months. We'll know when we get there how long we want to stay.

When we're done there, and some of my wanderlust is sated, I'd want to come back to Utah, hang out with family and friends for a few more weeks, then start to apply for grown up jobs and start a career. We'd move to a city where we both have opportunities, work for a while, get a car, work for a while more, then have a baby!

Does this sound like a good plan, or what? Rob's not so sure about the time in Central America. He's open, but unsure. Any of you that wants to nudge him for me, please feel free to do so. :)

A New Barrio

We have moved again!

Last year, we were the landing pad for a few folks who moved up to Seattle from Utah. My sister, and then her friend, were striking out to a new city on their own, and they lived with us for a while before getting settled on their own. They have both moved on and gotten their own places, so we had to get out of our pricier 2-bedroom and into a place for just us and our furry little monsters .

For our first two years in Seattle, we lived in a neighborhood called Queen Anne. It's a nice neighborhood, really beautiful, really quiet and safe. It's also just a little boring, and a little out of our price-range. While apartments were affordable, the stores, restaurants, and cafes were for people decidedly above us in income. As a result, we didn't go out as much as we would have liked, or had to spend quite a bit of time commuting to other neighborhoods to catch up with our friends.

Our apartment, also, was completely devoid of sunshine. We lived in a unit on the northern side of the building, right at the ground level, and our view consisted of one vine-covered cement wall. Direct sunlight literally never entered the place. This is a pretty solid recipe for depression in a city where it is so often dark and gloomy when you go outside.

We decided to get to a completely new part of the city. After an apartment hunt spanning several very cool neighborhoods, we stumbled upon one in a part of the city that we had never really looked for intentionally - Seattle's International District, a variation of what many cities would call a Chinatown. We found a place, loved it, and now we live across the street from a place with some awesome Hong Kong-style dim sum. :)

We are SO much more connected with the rest of the city via public transportation, we have good food just oozing out of our eyeballs with all the restaurants nearby, and the apartment itself is just great. We have a dishwasher, brand new hardwood floors, and, I almost die of happiness just typing this, a washer and dryer in unit.

Meet: The Avenger, and the Destroyer.

I needed really strong names for them to convey their importance in my life. :)

Best of all, we are in a corner unit, and we have gorgeous windows all along the eastern and southern walls, so the place is just flooded with light.

Enough light that I can try my hand again at keeping something other than kitties alive:

The kitties don't seem to be excited about eating the blossoms yet - that's how they derailed my brief attempt at growing tomatoes before.

All in all, it was a very providential move for us, and we are super excited about it.

Seattle is Pretty

Autumn has long been my favorite season. It's hard here in Seattle, because Autumn is when the rain starts, and I've been dreading the onset of the rain so much that when signs of fall started, I sorta panicked and wanted it to go away. And yes, the rainy days can be pretty crummy. But every once in a while, a sunny day breaks through, and the beautiful glory of Seattle shines through. It's a really beautiful city, on its good days. Here are some pics that were taken of the park directly across from our apartment just last week.

It's not quite Philly's Clark Park, but it's a gorgeous little bit of woods.

That's pretty much the view from my bus stop every day.

The other view from my bus stop.

Looking out over Kinnear Park to Elliott Bay and beyond.

Elliott Bay is so sparkly! Ooh!

BLCs

(Big Life Changes)

After a lot of talking and planning and strategizing and scheming and thinking and stuff, Robert and I have come to a big decision.

He is going to, for the time being, withdraw from school.

This has been an idea we've been toying with for some time. Moving to a new city is always hard, and coupled with transferring to a new school program, it has been a rough transition for him. The style and attitude of the Graphic Design program here has been pretty incompatible with Robert's studying, learning, and creative style. What I hated to see happening was watching Robert's love for his field dwindle due to his frustration with his program.

Oh, and we're $70,000 + in debt. Just for his school. Sad face.

So yes, he's out, for now.

We're excited about the possibilities going forward. He's looking for jobs in his field, and he really seems to be qualified for quite a few of them. We're sending in applications this week. If he gets a job and starts gaining experience in the field, we won't worry about going back someday. But if we find that employers really do insist on that degree paper, it will be really easy to re-enroll him.

He's also going to be able to spend a little more time learning Spanish via Rosetta Stone, in preparation for our upcoming trip to Suramérica. And, he created a really deep and amazing comic book character when he was younger, so I'm going to become his writer and we're going to see about establishing a little webcomic. Stay posted for further details.

Anyway, keep us positively in your thoughts, and wish Robert luck in his many exciting adventures, directly ahead!

And the lucky winner is.....

SANTIAGO!

Yep. We're going to Santiago, Chile for our fabuloso free vacation. We'll be there for a grand total of 7 nights next March.

We picked Santiago for a few reasons. It was pretty high on my list initially, but we were worried that it might not be very tourist-friendly after their major earthquake earlier this year. But after reading some reviews and talking to some folks from there, it looks like it'll be just fine.

I'm mostly excited for the chance to practice some espanol. Actually, on second thought, I'm mostly excited for the food. No, scratch that, I'm mostly excited for the amazing culture and beautiful landscapes.

Okay. I'm just excited. Big time. For everything. The flights and the hotel are completely booked, so we're going, no matter what. It will be our first time really using our passports (still don't think Canada counts), so we figure we'll do it with a big bang.

In preparation for our trip, Robert is beginning to study Spanish with Rosetta Stone. Buena suerte, mi cariño!

Life

Okay, okay, so we suck at this. My bad. And Robert's bad. Especially his, cuz look, I've written way more than him lately. :P

So, some fun stuff we've been up to lately.

We went on a trip to Vancouver! Amazing city. It feels slightly similar to Seattle, but I think I actually like it more. It felt very international. We heard SO MANY different languages being spoken all around us, more than you do even in New York. There was Chinese, and Punjabi, and Spanish, and French, and Arabic, and lots of them that we couldn't recognize. Purty cool.

Also, Stanly Park is super neato. We came across a whole den of raccoons there. I always thought raccoons had a reputation for being scared and slightly dangerous, but these fat little things just wandered right up to us. There were also gorgeous white swans; and, oh yeah, HERONS. How often do you just see herons hanging out right in front of you? Very cool.

I think my favorite part was the Lynn Canyon suspension bridge, which leads to the beautiful Lynn Canyon Park. A little park away in the mountain, with some beautiful hiking and a gorgeous river.

I knew I wanted to get out of town. (If you read just the front page of this blog, it's pretty obvious that that's been the main thing on my mind for months now.) But I thought I wanted to get out of town to get to another city. I am a city person, heart and soul. What I didn't realize was that I was really missing some good time in nature. Getting out of the city, and into the woods, did wonders for me.

I especially enjoyed being by the river. We made a friend in Philadelphia who was actually from Seattle, and was obsessed with water. I think water is cool and all, but I didn't really understand her love for it. Then I moved to Seattle, and after a few summers here, I can really start to see where the addiction can come from. On a clear sunny day, you are always just a couple of blocks away from a stunning vista of crystally blue water, gently heaving over the monstrous depths. It's really pretty cool.

But I grew up with rivers. We didn't have many impressive bodies of water in Northern Utah, so rivers were it. I loved their power, their sound, the crashing falls, and the smooth pools. And hiking along a river put me in touch with the type of peace I used to get out of nature in my childhood. And that was nice.

So there, there's a piece of our exciting life.

I'm making a list of other things I want to write about on here, so hopefully we'll stop being so boring. And I bet if Robert got some adoring fan mail, from all of our zero readers, he'd write sometimes too. :)

Oh, hi.

Oh yeah, we have this personal blog thing.

I don't have any witty or interesting things to say, but we have some big life updates, so I thought I'd come give an update for those who care.

Way back at the end of June, my younger sister, Laurie, moved up to Seattle and into our apartment. She had been living in St. George, Utah, and was just ready to start the next phase of her life and move out of the cultural doldrums that were stifling her in So. Utah. Plus, if she lives with me, she knows she'll get beat up if she doesn't fill out her college applications, so there's that extra motivation thrown into the mix. :)

We started looking for 2-bedroom apartments while Laurie applied for and got a job working with me at the front desk of our hotel. Meanwhile, one of Laurie's best friends, Logan, was also looking to pull up his St. George roots and move on. Logan is amazing..... You may have read about him in the Salt Lake Tribune, as he led the legal fight among high school students in St. George to have schools recognize gay/straight alliance clubs. He wanted to move to a wider world as well, and Laurie swore he was good at doing dishes, so we decided Laurie could get a bunk bed and he could move in with us too.

We did find a great 2-bedroom apartment. Well, we found a decent apartment, with a breathtaking view from the roof of the building. Seriously, it's probably one of the best views you can find in Seattle. I'll make Robert dig up the camera and post pictures on here soon so you can all be jealous.

Stuff "Lost" has to resolve in two hours on Sunday

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

***** If you are behind in Lost, or plan on watching it someday, do not read this post.*****

Here are just some mysteries that have yet to be adequately explained in the show:

Desmond -

How does he time travel?

How did he have premonitions about Charlie's death?

How does he resist electromagnetism?

How did Elouise know about his time traveling back in season 2?

Jacob -

How does he travel from the island?

Who was his mother?

What was his brother's name?

Why can't we know his brother's name?

How does he protect the island?

How did he pick these candidates, and how does he have so much control over their fate?

Where did this group of people who have to protect him, and who ask the secret question about "What lies beneath the statue," come from?

Smoke monster-

Is it the brother?

Why can't he kill Jacob or candidates?

Did he exist before the brother was pushed into the light?

Others -

Where did the others come from?

Who was Dogan, at the temple? How did him being a "leader" relate to leaders like Ben? Were they in the same group?

How did the water heal people?

Did they build the temple?

How did the guy with the eye patch keep coming back to life?

Dharma Initiative -

Why/by whom were they founded?

How did they find the island?

How long were they on the island?

What was their real goal?

Where did the Dharma food fall from in the 1st/2nd season?

General questions -

What is the "sickness" that Sayid, Claire, and the French people got?

Why can't women get pregnant/give birth on the island?

Where did the giant Egyptian statue come from?

Why do two storylines exist? Which is "real"?

Why did the psychic think that Claire's baby was evil and should die?

Who's going to take care of Sun and Jin's baby?

How old is the island?

What is the island?

What is the light an allegory for?

Why wasn't Mr. Echo a candidate (you know he wasn't because the smoke monster killed him)?

In the alternate future, why were they all still on Oceanic 815, if the island no longer had control of their fates?

I have had lots of other questions too, but I don't write them down right away and forget them forever.

What other plot holes/mysteries can you think of that need resolving this Sunday? Can you add more questions to my list?

numbers

3.

three.

THREE.

Three.

three.

Happy 3 years, honey.

STUFF - and my bruised Luddism

I am having major guilt right now.

We are in the process of "upgrading" some of our things. And I am feeling a lot of horrifying, evil, materialistic glee. :(

When we moved to Seattle, we got a free mattress from Craigslist. It has done its duty so far.... we've been able to sleep (kinda) on it. When laying on it, you can feel all the springs. There is a slight ridge in the middle, with two little valleys on either side. Pretty much every morning, I wake up with aching shoulders and a sore neck. So, we knew that an upgrade was due. After shopping around extensively for a few weeks, we settled on one today, that was on clearance, which we got for an awesome price. It's so much better than our current piece of junk, and we got a great deal on it. We will have a queen instead of a full, so Robert's feet won't hang 4 inches off the end. And, they are delivering it TOMORROW for FREE!!! And I cannot wait.

Also, today, on the very same day, I finally gave in and sent in for my free* phone upgrade. I'm going to have a big old fancy phone, with a full keyboard and everything. It's way sexier than any other phone I've ever owned. And I'm really excited to get it.

And I can't stand that I am so excited for it.

I know this isn't out-of-control, crazy spending. We really do need a new mattress. And the phone was, after all, free. But I'm worried I'm medicating my weather-induced gloom with shiny new toys, and it just feels so wrong. But so right.

I am so against "stuff". I hate how dependent we all are on new iPhones, new eBook readers, brand new furniture, and piles and piles of clothes, gadgets, and other assorted, expensive junk. I am philosophically committed to anti-materialism. I can't tell you how many times I've snobbishly rolled my eyes at people when they're fawning over their new phone or iPod.

But now it's me. I can't help myself. I suck. Help me.

All I can think to do is just to sit on my comfy bed and text about my self-loathing on my hi-tech phone.

*Free, that is, after you've called in to complain about the bogus hidden costs. Argh.