Jason Has His Own Website!

After some encouragement and nudging from me, Jason signed up for his own domain and created a website where he will blog about techie stuff. I wanted him to do this because he's really smart and excels at absorbing knowledge--knowledge that he gets from everyday work as well as from things he discovers and learns about on his own time. Unfortunately, the poor kid is stuck with me as his less-than-captive audience. Computer techie stuff is not my forte, nor my great interest in life, so a lot of stuff that he tries to explain to me gets blocked by a "zone-out" wall that I put up, if the information doesn't go right over my head to begin with. My eyes glaze over and I start thinking about other things. So...by him having his own blog/website, he can now pass on his knowledge to anyone who might be searching for it online.
Check it out!
http://casebolttech.com

Happy Halloween!

This is the first year that Jason and I actually did dress up in costumes! I was a Gypsy ( NOT a Romanian gypsy; they don't actually look like what we are used to seeing in the movies) and Jason was Michael Bleuth from Arrested Development. ( No one knew who he was) This year we were also on the activities committee for the Halloween Party--in other words, we had to go and participate rather than coming late, eating the food and running out before anyone saw us! Jason and I were in charge of the fish pond--probably the easiest Halloween game anyone can play. Simply lower your line and a toy will magically "get caught" on your line (the 'magic' performed backstage by Jason). It still seemed to be a difficult concept for some kiddies, I'm not sure why. Maybe the element of surprise can just be too overwhelming. Anyways, we had a great time and we've been gorging ourselves on candy all weekend. Oh, ironically, because I didn't really have any candy for trick-or-treaters on Halloween and I didn't want to worry about running out, we turned off all the lights and even taped a pillowcase over the small window on the front door. We are such weirdos!

  

Percy the Pumpkin

Every Halloween it is a Casebolt family tradition to carve a pumpkin. Ok, when I say it's a tradition, this is our third Halloween together and c'mon, who doesn't carve a pumpkin at Halloween? Call it whatever you like, it's fun to do! Jason decided this year to add to the tradition by frying up some pineapples and topping them with brown sugar. YUMMY! Now he will have to make them every year, because they were that good. We also roasted the seeds, which is a first for me. :) Neither of us is very original so we did our pumpkin up in the good ol' fashioned jack-o-lantern style. But hey, he's cute, and he shall be henceforth known as Percy, Percy the Pumpkin.

Fall is here!

Redmond is so beautiful right now! The sun has been shining and all of the deciduous trees are bursting with color. I think it's especially beautiful when you can contrast the bright red maple tree leaves with the rich green pines that are right behind them. Ah.... it's so romantic! I gotta bust out my watercolors and try another sad attempt at capturing this!
Jason and I went on a little walk the other day on a trail by our house. I was stopping and taking so many pictures that Jason finally turned to me, exasperated, and said, " Are you going to talk to me or just take pictures??" Poor kid. He lives with such an eccentric wife! I can't help it that I am drawn to beauty! I wish everyone could see it the way I do. Or that I at least had some sort of device capable of capturing the essence of fall in Redmond right now.

The Savvy Shopper- My $25 purchase

When we moved to Seattle, Jason and I decided that it was high time we started taking advantage of all those wonderful coupons out there for our grocery shopping. We subscribed to the Seattle Times just to get the coupons. For those of you who don't know, there are grocery store coupons and then coupons put out by the manufacturer of the product. If you can find both for a certain item, you can usually use both. So if a box of cereal is normally $2.99 and you find a store coupon which says take $.50 off and then you find a Kelloggs manufacturer coupon for that brand of cereal and it says take a dollar off, then essentially you can take off $1.50 from that $2.99! Usually the deals aren't that amazing, but sometimes you come across some sweet deals.
So this week, I did part of my grocery shopping on Wednesday and went to two stores. Between the two I spent a total of $25! I got 15 items which included brand names like nature valley, fiber one and kellogg's --and I even got a roast!

Take a Hike!

Much to our delight, the gloom and doom as predicted by Seattlites was postponed a little more when we woke up on Saturday to a glorious sunny warm day! Jason had done some research and found out about a state park a hour northeast of us that had some good hikes. So like the good Seattlites that we are, we decided to take advantage of the weather and go hiking! Can I just say how much I LOVE the forests of western Washington? Everything is so green and lush. We walked past tall pines trees covered in moss with ferns growing all along the forest floor. It was stunning. The end of our hike rewarded us with a beautiful view of some waterfalls.



I thought this was kind of funny. I don't know why I always get a kick out of signs like this.

Ode to a Watercolor

How I wish I could water color,
Let me count the ways!
To hold a brush,
mix some paint,
and create a beautiful landscape!
But alas! My dreams and wishes
are far greater than my skill.
And my feeble artist's hand
struggles to meet my expectations still!
I will practice,
I will persist.
Yet my heart cannot resist
the hope that someday,
someway,
my hand will succeed
and all my dreams fulfill!

I have attempted to take up the art of water coloring. I remember starting at a young age with my mom leaning over me, showing me how to tape up the sides, blot my brush and make a wash. She was my best teacher. I dabbled with it again in high school, with some promising results. But then I went to college. Apparently there were a lot more important things to do than keep up my art skills. Woe to me.
But it's never to late to start up again, so that is what I have begun! I figured that if I am to paint a picture that comes close to resembling Mt. Rainier, I should probably practice my technique and form a few times ( and a few more times) before I attempt that.
So far, I don't have much to show. In fact, I hesitate to show anything I've done so far until I've practiced a bit more ( and then a bit more). Perhaps I will post my earlier work later on, if I've improved, to show a "before and after" post. Perhaps.