I was a lot more excited about seeing my family than I was about going back to work. It would have been a bad time for me to be away, so I'm glad that I was able to be there. My mom actually didn't know that I was going to be back in town, so I think that was a nice surprise for her. I saw my parents and spent plenty of time with them, which was good for a lot of reasons. I also spent time with my grandmother, both the white one and the black one (she's not actually my grandmother, she calls herself that, though). I shared some pictures from our website with my real grandmother, since she doesn't use the internet. I also spent some time with Lesley's parents, which was nice. And, I was able to see Adam, his dad, and Sofia. It was a very busy three days and I'm really glad that I was able to spend so much time with so many people.

It was especially cool that everyone was so excited to see me. I guess I've been the center of attention before, like at graduation, but it cool that everyone was excited to see me and we had plenty to talk about, almost like I was a celebrity. Even though I had only been gone for a month, I couldn't take closeness for granted anymore, so I wanted to make plenty of time to see people. Since I had to work a full day every day, making plenty of time to see everyone meant that I'd have to sacrifice on sleep. As much as I wanted to go to bed on time and get plenty of sleep like I normally do, I figured I could sleep back in Seattle and I didn't want to use sleep as an excuse not to see people. So, the trip was very tiring, and by Wednesday, I was exhausted. Still, it was worth it to see everyone and I enjoyed it.

We've mentioned before that there's a band that practices across the alley from us. It seems like they practice there at least every other day. I generally really like the ambient sounds of the city, I think they're part of what makes living in the city so exciting. So, I think it's really cool that we get to hear music fairly regularly at a volume that's quiet enough not to really bother us but loud enough to be good background noise. Still, it would be nice if the band weren't always playing the same songs over and over. I understand that they have to practice and that they're not there for our enjoyment, but, even at this low volume, hearing things over and over gets a little annoying.

The weather here has been pretty consistent and has been gradually warming up. I figured that we wouldn't see any more cold weather and would have to wait until next winter to possibly see some snow. However, over the past week, there has been some unseasonable snowfall. On my way back to Seattle from D/FW, I heard someone mention that it was snowing in Seattle, which seemed kind of hard for me to believe. However, it was snowing here, and it had apparently snowed a few times before I arrived and it snowed again after I got back. Most locals were surprised at the late snowfall, too. Nothing accumulated, but it fell for a while and was kind of neat to see. It was hard to get a good picture of the snow, but here's one below:

Sometimes the sunsets are very pretty from our apartment. I don't normally like photos without color, but in this case I think the lack of color helps bring out the layering of the clouds.

There are a lot of little differences between here and in Texas. One of the things I've noticed is that they don't use twist ties here for bread in the store, they use little clips like the one pictured below. I think I like twist ties more because they seem easier to remove, but it doesn't really matter, I'm just curious why they don't use twist ties here.

There's a lot of moss here. I don't know if it will go away as it gets drier and warmer, but right now you can see moss all over the place. Here's a picture of some moss on a tree and of some moss on some kind of concrete barricade. There's also moss on the ground and a lot of other places.

There's this cylinder thing near our sink and I don't know what it is. We had one at our old place, too, but I figured it was just broken. Is it supposed to do something? Are we supposed to be able to connect something to it? It's just kind of in the way and doesn't make sense.

There's a young adults group at church that gets together monthly and we were invited to a wine, cheese, and chocolate tasting get-together last night. It was a lot of fun, we got to try a lot of different kinds of wine, cheese, and chocolate and meet and hang out with new people. I'm really glad we went and am looking forward to doing more fun things like that in the future.

I think it's going to get prettier here, but now is a pretty time of year. Some of the pink trees nearby are losing their flowers, but other white flowers are blooming. It's been very pretty walking around our apartments and seeing these flowers. Here's a picture a couple blocks from where we live.

Since the reason for and sponsor of my trip to town was my job, I'll talk about that briefly. The original reason for me coming back was to attend a meeting which wouldn't have been worth the trip if it were my only reason for being there. However, I had several other things coincide while I was there that kept me quite busy.

I'm working on a project to install, set up, and configure a software application that some people will be using at work, and we were having some issues with the setup that needed an expert to fix. So, we had a consultant come in for 12 hours over the first two days I was there, which kept me occupied a lot of that time. I didn't have to be there the whole time, fortunately, so I could do some other things that I needed to, but it still took up quite a bit of my time. I also had several meetings to go to and didn't have much time to meet face-to-face with my boss. Every day I was there was quite busy, though each day was a little less busy than the day before.

While I wanted to get my job done, it was probably more important to me to get to spend time with people after work. Even though I had been gone only a month, there were a lot of people who wanted to see me, and I wanted to make sure to spend plenty of time with my parents. So, I made myself leave work at 5:00 every day, even though I had enough work to keep me there for at least another hour. I got into work every day at 8:00, which is a little early for me, especially when it required waking up at 4:30 pacific time.

I barely started packing the night before leaving, but fortunately it didn't take too long. I had heard that getting through security at Sea-Tac airport (short for Seattle-Tacoma airport) took a while, so I wanted to make sure to get there with plenty of time. Unlike D/FW, Sea-Tac is incredibly easy to get in and out of, so Lesley was easily able to drop me off where I needed to be. I didn't want to check any bags because I'm impatient, so I fit everything into my carry on luggage and I was able to quickly get my boarding pass. Security did take a while, though. There were two lines, and as far as I could tell, one of them looked like it had a shorter distance to go than the other, so that's the one I picked. What I didn't realize though was that the other line had two people checking everyone's ID and boarding pass and the line I chose was staffed by only one person. So, my line took quite a while. If I'd chosen the other line it wouldn't have taken long at all. Then, when I got to the front of the line to have my ID reviewed, the guy raised questions about my boarding pass, which actually wasn't a boarding pass, it was a piece of paper that said my flight but didn't have a seat number. For a brief moment I wondered if I'd have to go back to the ticket counter, but he let me through. After partially undressing to get through security (I had to take off my coat, shoes, watch, belt, and take my phone out of my pocket), I didn't have any problems getting through with gel deoderant and toothpaste still in my bags and the struggle to put everything back on and away and get out of the security area without slowing the people down behind me wasn't too bad. I don't carry a whole lot with me that I need to put in the bins, so I don't know how other people with a lot of stuff and with kids get through security without a lot of trouble. After getting through security, I went to my gate to get a legitimate boarding pass with a seat number and I ended up with an exit row. Not the whole row, just one seat on the row.

Anyway, I had about an hour to spend in the airport, so I walked around a little. I stopped by a retail stand for a scanner system and asked a few questions. I would like to reduce the amount of paper that we have on file at home so I would be sort of interested in a scanner, but I'd have to look around some before paying $200 for something I saw at an airport. With the remaining time I had left before my flight, I called a few family members and finished reviewing upcoming Seattle events in a weekly newspaper.

Finally, boarding started and everyone swarmed the line, as if them waiting for their boarding group to be called rather than staying seated and out of the way would somehow make the whole process go faster.

I would've liked a window seat, but I got stuck in between two people. Being on an exit row, though, meant that I had plenty of leg room. However, I didn't realize it also meant no tray table, or at least that's what it looked like until the person next to me uncovered the hidden tray table in the arm rest. That was a new one to me. For the first part of the flight, I wrote this post and enjoyed the cranberry apple cocktail they brought to me. I also did some work on the computer, preparing for tomorrow.

There wasn't much turbulence on the flight. There was like an hour, though, when it seemed that everyone on the flight needed to use the restroom, including myself. As we approached D/FW, the horizon turned brown and we descended into a thick layer of haze. And, as always, it took a while to taxi at D/FW airport. Then, to get to the rental cars, I didn't know that I had to take a shuttle there (since I've never gotten a rental car at D/FW before), so it took me a while to find that. But, I got my car (a black Dodge Caliber) and headed out for some dinner. I wanted something that I couldn't have in Seattle, but it was after 9:00 so a lot of places were closed. But, thanks to Lesley's directions over the phone I found a Chicken Express that was open. It was pretty good, and also greasy and salty enough to be pretty gross at the same time. I checked into my hotel near the airport, which had free internet and free breakfast. By that time it was only 8:30 pacific time, but 10:30 central, so I went to bed.

The first day was the most leisurely and uninteresting of the trip, the rest of the time was very busy and so I haven't been able to remember all the details, which most people would probably rather hear more about than about my flight, but I'll post what I can soon.

My boss needed me to come back for a few days and I wanted to visit my family, so I was back in Dallas/Fort Worth for a few days. I hadn't mentioned this here until now because I wanted to surprise my mom. In fact, until a day or so before I left, I hadn't really given much thought to the fact that I'd be traveling back to D/FW after moving away about a month ago. It kind of sucked leaving Lesley alone at home so shortly after moving, but she dealt with it well and enjoyed doing things that I'm not that interested in (Lord of the Rings is a good movie, but I can only watch it so many times). While I hadn't been away from D/FW for that long, it was a little weird being back at the place where I spent so many years. I'll share some more details and thoughts in the next few days.

Troy had to go back to Texas for work. He left this past Sunday and comes back tomorrow afternoon. It sucks being here alone. Coming home to an empty apartment isn't very fun. I'm looking forward to him coming home tomorrow.

I finally took some pictures of the view from my new job. We're on the 28th floor and can see pretty far in most directions. It wasn't quite clear enough to see the Olympic Mountains to the west, but I'm sure some day this summer I can take some when it's clearer.

View from work:

This past Saturday turned out to be a great day to go outside. Hardly a cloud in the sky and highs close to 60. We woke up fairly early for us on a Saturday and went to eat bagels at a local place on Capital Hill. Then we drove to Snoqualmie Falls about 30 miles east of here off of I-90. I had been wanting to go see it ever since we got here. It's sort of famous because David Lynch's tv show, Twin Peaks, was filmed near Snoqualmie Falls and North Bend. Lots of shots from the show can be found around the North Bend area. After a pretty drive through a lot of forest, we finally got there and took several pictures of the falls. It was really windy close to the edge of the cliff. There was a good amount of people considering how cold it is still. I imagine it's really busy in the summer. We walked down about 1/2 a mile to the bottom of the falls and took some more video and pictures. We could have gone into the Salish Lodge at the top of the falls, but we were getting hungry and wanted to get back to Seattle.

After the falls, we drove back and stopped near the University of Washington. There are a lot of places to eat and shop near the campus. We ate at a Pho place and it was alright, pretty cheap, but not really my kind of food. Troy likes it a lot for some reason.

We walked around UW for a while, then we went to Alki Beach close to sunset so we could see all of downtown Seattle lit up. This is one of the best places for views of the city. We walked around the shoreline for a while and then drove up to the top of the hill. You never see anything like this in Texas.

Snoqualmie Falls:


Alki Beach:

It's sort of hot in the afternoon since our apartment faces west, so we have our window open so the colder air can come inside. I can hear sea gulls in the distance, which I think is so cool. I can also hear them on my way to and from work. It's really crazy that we live near an ocean now and can see and hear sea gulls all the time. It's awesome.

I don't know what's wrong with our fridge, but at various times throughout the day it suddenly makes very loud cracking noises. Normally it will make a few slight popping noises, a few seconds apart, and then it will make a really loud cracking noise, and then it will stop. The noise sounds like it's coming from somewhere in the back, in between the fridge part and the freezer part. The only thing that I can figure out is that something in the fridge is turning on to melt the ice in the drain part of the freezer and the ice cracking makes the loud noise. I don't know how fridges work, though, and why it would only be two or three times per day and why the noise would be loud enough to wake me up at night. It's a fairly new fridge, too, so it's a little confusing and annoying.

We have a piano in the reception area of our office and I figured it was just for show or looks. To my surprise, it actually gets used - and during work hours too! The President of the company plays the piano about once a week for a few minutes each time. It's nice when he plays it because it's so quiet at work except for hearing everyone type or talk on the phone or whatever. I think it's pretty cool that he plays during business hours, I only wish he would play more.

My current employment situation is pretty good; I have a good-paying job that I like pretty well, my daily commute is like 20 feet, and being located remotely means that I can still do most of my job responsibilities but that I don't get sucked into urgent issues that would have me working late. But, it is only a temporary arrangement, as my company will be finding someone to replace me who can be located on-site. So, that means that I need to be looking for a job here. I'd probably be content to drag things out and take advantage of the position I'm in, but I don't want to be replaced at work and have no new job to go to, and Lesley has made it her highest priority for me to get a job.

The problem is that while I can be a very self-motivated person, I've been very unmotivated to look for a job. I'm quite satisfied with my current situation, and I'm sure I could find another job that I like, but I know that I don't want to work in this field long-term; I just don't know what I want to be doing instead. I just don't want to go through a bunch of trouble to find another job which isn't what I want to be doing either; it's a lot of effort without much immediate benefit.

I've been struggling to figure out what I want to be doing for several years, but, like many people do, I've been able to ignore that deeper desire to figure out my purpose. Still, I can't help but feel that I'm getting close to realizing what I want to do with my life and that I just haven't realized it or found it quite yet. This leaves me wanting to delay looking for a job with the naive hope that within the next couple months I'll suddenly know what I want to do and will be able to start doing it. I just need to realize that I'm living in the real world and set my frame of mind to start really focusing on job searching and hope that someday things will be a little clearer.

So, about a year ago, I decided to try to make meatloaf. Well, this required us to buy a can of Quaker oatmeal. I haven't made meatloaf ever since for whatever reason and so we've had this big can of oatmeal for a while. I finally decided to try to make oatmeal cookies with it since there is a recipe for them on the other side of the lid to the can. It seemed fairly easy and we had most of the stuff to make them.

Anyway, I made them last night and it took about an hour. I halved the recipe, but it still made a lot of cookies. They're pretty good actually. I may have to make some more for my mom when she comes to visit this summer, since I think they're one of her favorite kinds of cookie. She likes peanut butter cookies too, but those sound harder to make!

Oatmeal cookies: