Attention: Failure

Well we did not get to run in the Brew Ha-Ha 5k as originally planned. There is no good excuse for it, so I won’t even try. We worked the Token/Ticket booth of the Oktoberfest Festival on Friday night. On Saturday morning, my hair was more important than sports and I went to get my hair done at the Aveda Hair Institute in Capital Hill, which was awesome. I highly recommend it. I saw it called a “hidden gem” in a magazine once and I agree with that. Saturday afternoon - back to the Oktoberfest to use up our free admission and Tokens, met up with some friends and then went down to Dave and Tammy’s for some games.

Rob is working on his garage today. He claims that it needs it to be cleaned up and his tools organized in order for him to work on any more projects in the house. We get our roof and skylights done next week. I (hopefully) will be posting some pictures of our skyline/mountain view from our imaginary bedroom to be completed at a later date.

Congrats to our friends, Liz and Adam ,who are getting married in Vegas on Monday. I’ll be cheering them on via webcast. What a great idea! Can’t wait to hear about it when they get back, wish we were there too!

Brady Quinn falls as Michigan moves forward

I'm just as surprised as you are. We still can't get over the game. I think we had all lost our voices just in the first quarter alone. Yeah, I know, like anyone can hear 200 people from West Seattle, but still. It was a great game and this just means we now are one step closer to the possibility of the RV down to Pasasena!



We bought a chair last night. We found it on Criagslist, it was going to be a Christmas present, but furniture items are probably better as joint purchases and not gifts. It's an authentic 1930s Arts & Crafts style rocker from some guy's farmhouse in Colorado. Has always been in the family and he's trying to downsize. We'll take it! It fits in perfectly.






All day I email and Instant Message, for the past few weeks I've been knitting at home ... all night (FYI - Christmas and Birthdays are coming and everyone knows they are getting an Allison original). I think it is finally starting to catch up with me and now I have a major case of sore wrists. Possibly the start of carpal tunnel. Great. Tomorrow I am going to see an Acupuncturist. I think that my regular general practice D.O. could help me as well, but I am interested in the alternative, just to see how it works. I also tend to have back pain too. Gosh, I'm not even 30. I know that I need to change some of my habits (the way I sit, stand, walk, etc), hopefully this will get me on the right track.


The nerd in me would like to pass along this info. It's about the 747 Large Cargo Freighter that landed at Boeing Field last Saturday that is going to be used to transport some of the big sections of the 787 Dreamliner. I wouldn't normally care about this type of thing except, well it's an occupational hazard for Rob, and that Boeing Field is right by our house, so we were hoping that it would have flown by and we would see it. 747 are not easy to miss, especially when they fly right over your house. Unfortunatly at 8:08am, I was still in bed. However, we did see it sitting outside on the way to the bar. That's a pretty funny looking plane! Love or hate globalization, transporting parts via plane is really an intersting way to assemble your product.

Great Marketing: Free concert via webstream

It really worked out. Liz has an obsession with John Mayer. I have one with Mat Kearney. To have these two talented musical acts in one show was a treat. Streaming live from Webster Hall in New York City – Wow! Liz called me to tell me that it was going to be on and I am so glad she did. For the next hour and a half I had my laptop and was jamming to Mat Kearney and John Mayer live from NYC. Awesome! Promptly after the concert, I downloaded both of their cds from iTunes as a “thank you” for the free entertainment. I love concerts, but barely go to big concerts because they are too expensive. Rolling Stones – forget it! Pearl Jam – Sorry.. too expensive. Take me to

Tonight I was building a cabinet that will be installed on the other side of the refrigerator. Currently we have a little cart there. I've always thought it looked like something was missing. I call it feng shui to irritate Rob. But really, it just looks stupid without it. Rob should/might install it tonight or tomorrow and soon we'll have a tall 12 inch wide cabinet. I just can’t believe how much storage we’ve been able to pack into that tiny kitchen.

We’ve got to get up early and get to RockSport for the game Saturday. We are trying to get a seat right up front, but the bar is going to be packed with Michigan fans. I’ll try to take pictures. Go Blue! If there is one game all season that I hope we win, it’s this one.

Cloudy Saturday

Fall is near. The days are shorter, the mornings are foggy and yesterday it rained! It hasn’t rained all summer long, so I’m sad to say fall is just around the corner. With it will be more clouds, more rain and more fog. We have to try to take full advantage of whatever nice days we have left. While yesterday we laid on the couch and watched football. We attempted to go watch the Michigan game at RockSport, but came home after breakfast since Rob and I were both too sick to hold our heads up. After wasting yesterday away, today we have actually accomplished something.

This morning I tried to clear up the ivy in the back yard. We borrowed our neighbor's, Mike, hedge trimmer last weekend and it has really worked like a charm. I was thinking that it would be nice to thin out the ivy in the back, since we would like to put a new fence in this spring. I got about a quarter of the way done and gave up. Rob spent the whole morning thinning out the fig tree in the front that is also home to about 5 million birds. After that I moved inside and started on the chores that I know best, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning up, knitting (I know that’s not a chore!)

It’s important that I point out that about a week ago I noticed that a new coffee shop is in Beacon Hill! Yeah! It’s not a starbucks, but a cute indy shop called, Galaxy. I haven’t been in there yet, but it’s really exciting to start to see a change in the area. Rob and I are so proud to take a chance on this up and coming neighborhood and we welcome and are excited to see any new business that pops up.

On Friday night we went to Happy Hour at the Met with some of my co-workers, I then was able to drag to the central (our favorite dive bar) and then to 88 keys, dueling piano bar. There is also a new bar/restaurant that just opened down by Qwest Field that is part of the Elysian Brewing Company, I think it is called Elysian Fields. The place looks really swanky and has windows that open to the sidewalk. I can’t wait to try it.

Additional Pictures:

Cabinets with finished trim

I'm proud to present Rob's clients from the hornet's nest above our side entrance.

Pictures I meant to show earlier

I meant to post these pictures before. I always have a hard time uploading images from home. I think it has something to do with our seedy internet connection. Anyway, here they are.

New bedroom mirror. Bonus Second Use find for $25

Also from Second Use, this cabinet that now holds my yarn stash

New mirror in the Dining Room

Labor for Labor Day

This weekend we decided not to go anywhere and just work on projects around the house. The ones that we have been putting off and putting off. Well, I should say Rob mostly, since most of this stuff I can't do.

Saturday morning kicked off the start of College Football season. Rob and I had Dave and Tami over for a full out breakfast. Blueberry Pancakes, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit and yummy brownies for after halftime. Dave and Tami brought the mamosas. We even did something that I would almost never do, we actually tivo'd ESPN Gameday and the game so we could get a late start and not miss any of the game. We make a point to NEVER tivo sports events, but for this we made an exception. We start this season again with the following conversation.

Allison: "Rob, if Michigan makes it to the Rose Bowl, can we go?"
Rob: "Sure, that would be fun."

After the way they played Sat, I don't have my hopes up. At least we will be home from the UP by then... just in case.

We also took some time to plan out what we want to go for the basement and the bathroom downstairs. We have made an appointment to get the roof done starting sept. 20 and I also really want to start to get a move on in the basement and the bathroom. This way, our guests will have a bathroom and we will have a chance to save some more money for completling the bedroom upstairs.

Here are some of our ideas so far for the basement and bathroom:
Cork Flooring - Environmentally Friendly and softer than ceramic tile.
We'll clean up the current cabinets in the basement and then build a table around the current sink. This way, I'll have an area to fold laundry. We were at the Environmental Home Center this weekend and found a great idea for a table top. I forget the name or else I would post it.

In the Bathroom we have a lot of ideas floating around, but I think we have decided on the most important ones.
Picture This (Sofia Patrillo style) - Royal Blue walls with white beadboard. White Hex Floor with Blue accent around the edges, white Hex shower floor with blue accent tile and subway tile on the walls with a glass door. A white rectangular pedestal sink and white toliet. For faucets, I picked This and This.
Here are some pictures we used for inspiration. I like the blue color in the bathroom in these photos, but it happens to be the same blue as the bedroom, so we've decided on the dark blue instead.