Happy Holidays! 12-22-02 Jon and Amy got us a digital camera for Christmas (can you believe it?!?), so Sean and I have been taking digital pictures of everything. See: bathroom before shower before Shane painting We remodeled our bathroom.... it started with the simple necessity due to the horrid mold/mildew problem (a 50 year-old bathroom in Seattle which has never had a bathroom fan). So we put in a fan and the project just sorta snowballed. See what we have now?!? Our "new" bathroom! You can barely tell in the pictures above, but we used to have glass shower doors that were cracked and nasty, and now we have a shower curtain. Next project is to paint the shower ceiling metallic silver (it's purple now - too dark) and hang up some towel hooks. Next project after that (possibly): the kitchen cupboards. Stay tuned. So the administrative building for my school burned down. I'm sending my check for the next quarter, and I'm assuming it will be forwarded to the right hands. This building is close to Johnston Architects. .................................. I made bourbon balls with an entire fifth of bourbon, because I completely forgot that I ALREADY upped the bourbon portion when I typed out the recipe on my recipes page. Lordy. They tasted nothing but FLAMMABLE. So by the time I upped all the other ingredients to balance everything out, I ended up with a quadruple batch of Bourbon Balls. And they *still* make your eyes water! Sean and I leave tomorrow for our trip - while we are away, Brian is watching the house with Shane and Joe, and Lalo is fixing my car! We will be in Indiana and Florida until January 2nd. I wish you all the best, and I'll see you back here with TONS o' PHOTOS taken with the new camera!!! • link 12-20-02 Hi. Okay. I'm here. Work. School. Work. You know.... I am fully aware that I have been slacking in my web updates. Seattle is having torrential rain off and on since December kicked in. No snow in the passes until just last week, which had the local snowbunnies enduring a bad case of the waities. Recent local news includes an ATM robber being shot in the head by the police, and then a 15-year old car thief being chased down by the car's owner, who shot him in the head and killed him. All for a 1985 Pontiac. I've been baking cookies like a mad woman, although they disappear soon after I bake them, so I don't have much proof of my labor. Last Saturday Alexandra and I baked during a particularly gross rainy day, then brought them to Julie's Christmas party. Everyone else brought cookies as well, so the majority of my food for that whole day was cookies. Not that I'm complaining. The Six Arms gang adopted two families for Christmas - a single father with two boys and a single mother with one girl. This Saturday we all get together to wrap our givings. Starbucks had a Secret Santa exchange and I got a vegetarian cookbook from Brian. But I'm not supposed to know it was from him. School is making my life crazier than usual - I really do need a social secretary who can help me schedule my life. Adding Christmas shopping to the month made it even more insane. Last Friday I saw Star Trek's new movie and I really liked it. The villain is a hottie. Tom Hardy. RArr. • link