Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The Bottom
Well, it's finally happened. The housing market has gotten so bad we're finally seeing houses in our neighborhood that we might just barely be able to afford if we lower a bunch of standards. I mean, really, who needs food everyday? I think you actually just need water. The problem is that now EVERYONE can afford it. Ash went to look at our "find" yesterday and he said the place was swarming. "Like ants on a hot dog", he said. I guess the problem really is that the one standard we could lower that would speed up buying is the one we can't compromise on, and that is the quality of the schools - that's why people move to this neighborhood. Oh, well.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
A Few Good Things
We're still waiting for Ash to have some good luck, but Theron and I got a few good ones in this week.
Theron had two, I said TWO, 100% good behavior/work completed days at school. It's pretty much unprecedented. He's now the proud owner of an Eon Boy costume. I don't know who that is, but he was stoked. It's fun to see him so proud of himself.
For me, the luck was winning the bag raffle at Trader Joe's. When you bring in your own shopping bags they give you a raffle ticket and every week someone wins $25 in groceries. You can't buy alcohol or vitamins, but you can buy everything you were going to buy anyway and splurge on a bottle of the good stuff.
This week Ozge and I took a shopping trip downtown in the fabric district to get Inherent Vice Squad supplies. Meters are now $3 an hour so I had a wallet full of quarters. We found the perfect spot and as I started pulling into it some homeless guy started to pummel my meter. I couldn't watch him and drive at the same time, all I could think was NOW what!? but Ozge said he was shoving an open paper clip in the slot and hitting it. When we got out there was an hour on the meter. He said if we gave him $2 he would put more time on it if we went over an hour. So we did. Now Ozge wants to try this trick herself, but I don't think I want to be there when she does.
We found some little treasure houses of supplies among the many duds. Ozge is a natural in the market place. She bargains and makes demands. I just ask the price and give it to them, but when they tried to charge me $6.99 for something I paid $5 for on Saturday I complained and got the better price without even really trying. We came away with an armful of supplies and a bunch of swatches. Now we just have to do the work.
We ordered some products with our logo on them - silver tape measures for giving away at the conference, and aluminum water bottles and retractable ear buds for sale at the booth. So things are moving along...
Theron had two, I said TWO, 100% good behavior/work completed days at school. It's pretty much unprecedented. He's now the proud owner of an Eon Boy costume. I don't know who that is, but he was stoked. It's fun to see him so proud of himself.
For me, the luck was winning the bag raffle at Trader Joe's. When you bring in your own shopping bags they give you a raffle ticket and every week someone wins $25 in groceries. You can't buy alcohol or vitamins, but you can buy everything you were going to buy anyway and splurge on a bottle of the good stuff.
This week Ozge and I took a shopping trip downtown in the fabric district to get Inherent Vice Squad supplies. Meters are now $3 an hour so I had a wallet full of quarters. We found the perfect spot and as I started pulling into it some homeless guy started to pummel my meter. I couldn't watch him and drive at the same time, all I could think was NOW what!? but Ozge said he was shoving an open paper clip in the slot and hitting it. When we got out there was an hour on the meter. He said if we gave him $2 he would put more time on it if we went over an hour. So we did. Now Ozge wants to try this trick herself, but I don't think I want to be there when she does.
We found some little treasure houses of supplies among the many duds. Ozge is a natural in the market place. She bargains and makes demands. I just ask the price and give it to them, but when they tried to charge me $6.99 for something I paid $5 for on Saturday I complained and got the better price without even really trying. We came away with an armful of supplies and a bunch of swatches. Now we just have to do the work.
We ordered some products with our logo on them - silver tape measures for giving away at the conference, and aluminum water bottles and retractable ear buds for sale at the booth. So things are moving along...
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Local Art and Beauty
This is the hillside on my way to work. 
This is a view from work's parking lot.
These are my beautiful little friends, the house finches. I couldn't get closer without scaring them. 
The parking lot at El Huarache
The rainbow Theron and I saw early, early Monday morning near Gorman. We also saw a car on fire but I couldn't get Theron to take a picture.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Birthday
Ashley recently celebrated his 50th. 50 is the bowling birthday. We had great big fun and kind of a big workout. I don't know about Ash, but I woke up feeling like I slept on all 10 pins. I asked Theron if he was aching and he said, no, but everytime he thought about it he was really exhausted. We can't wait to go again, either.
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