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swedepea
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Name: Andrea
State: Minnesota
Metro: Minneapolis
Birthday: 12/19/1980
Interests: Lord of the Rings, CS Lewis, Jane Austen, Harry Potter, Economics ... :-)
Expertise: Procrastinating
Occupation: Accounting/Finance
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Member Since:
12/1/2004
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| I had a wonderful trip to Oregon!! It was so great to see Amanda again and to get to know Tyler better. We managed to squeeze in all sorts of local site-seeing sorts of things as well as plenty hang-out-at-home time, watching movies, chatting, and catching up! Not sure we could've done much to better schedule our time if we'd tried!
The first day (Saturday), we went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm, which happily was still in full bloom. Got lots of great pictures, most of which turned out considerably better than I was anticipating, given what I saw through the view-finder on my camera!
Sunday morning we went to church, and then out for lunch at a great little diner, called The Sassy Onion. The menu was a bit like Egg'lectic, but a bit more Ma & Pa atmosphere. My omelette and hashbrowns were delicious! In the afternoon, we went to the Willamette Valley Vineyards* for a wine-tasting. There was also a jazz concert going on, that we'd contemplating attending, but the tickets were $20 each and we just never quite got around to it. Turns out, we got to listen to it while doing our wine-tasting, plus the guy we worked with was awesome and hilarious! I know Amanda got a picture of him, but I don't seem to have gotten a copy. May need to do that, just for posterity! I ended up buying a bottle of some really yummy dessert wine (of course, the last time I bought a bottle of really yummy wine after doing a wine tasting, it wasn't nearly as good as I'd remembered it when I had it at home...I have higher hopes for this bottle!). In the evening I subjected treated Tyler and Amanda to a viewing of the inestimable Puma Man! Tyler tragically fell asleep, and while Amanda admitted to being entertained, she did express a lack of desire to ever put herself through it again. Silly girl.
Monday we slept in later than planned (well, Amanda and I did...Tyler had to get up early and go to school - tee hee). After Tyler got home, we went to the Oregon Garden, nearby. We took the much-recommended tram tour, which was fine and we learned a lot more about what we were seeing than we would have otherwise, but, despite going approximately 8 miles an hour, it was just enough to create a breeze that I think may well have qualified for registering windchill temps! By the end we were all sort of wishing we'd thrown on a pair of long underwear before heading out, but the weather was much more comfortable when we were just walking around! Lots of lovely flowers (not as many as the tulip farm, of course, but a bit more variety  ), but much of it was not much to look at this early in the year. The rose garden, for example, which consisted largely of a lot of dead-looking sticks in the ground. Still, it was fun, and we wrapped up the night by heading home for Tyler's homemade gyros (yum!) and a viewing of all 5 hours of the BBC Pride and Prejudice! I honestly don't know the last time I watched that all the way through, but it's been a long time! And it made me happy. 
Then Amanda and I stayed up way too late chatting, realizing it was our last night, to the point that I actually never went to bed. I had a 5:30 a.m. flight out of Portland, about an hour away, so we needed to leave the house around 3:15 to get there on time! (Tyler definitely earned some brownie points there!!) I didn't feel THAT tired through the whole process, but I fell asleep on the plane as soon as we were off the ground! I had a layover in Seattle, a mere 35 minute flight away, so that didn't amount to much of a nap, but I was sound asleep again as soon as I was on my flight out of Seattle. I remember the safety spiel beginning, but I think I was out before they finished...I don't even remember take-off! Who sleeps through take-off?! I woke up briefly when they turned the seatbelt sign off, to recline my seat, and then was out again until about 45 minutes before landing in the Twin Cities! I've *never* slept that much on an airplane before!
So, all in all, a great trip! I'm so glad I was able to go! Pics here!
* Tangential story: As we were driving around downtown Salem on Sunday morning, we passed a number of things called "Willamette _______." At some point either Tyler or Amanda said something to the effect of "Just down the way is what is known as the Willamette Valley," to which I replied, "Of course I know that! I did play Oregon Trail in elementary school, you know!"
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| On Monday I finished my Managerial Accounting class (hurray). By Wednesday we already had our final grades. I got a B+. I realize I shouldn't complain about that, but I'm not feeling too pleased about it all the same. For one thing, B+ is the median grade in MBA classes...and therefore basically the equivalent of a C on a normal grading scale. For another, as I've undoubtedly mentioned before, I went into the Evil Final Exam of Doom with a solid A, and, up till that point, had felt like there was a good chance I would get an A in the class, or an A- at the worst. Boo. Oh well, it is over, one more required class checked off the list, three more credits completed, I'm not losing sleep over it.
And my Thursday class, while not being over, is at least one more big *project* down. We have only two more weeks of it, but today and next week are for a longer presentation, so half the class went today and the other half goes next week. I have some reading to do for next week, but I gave my presentation today, so at least I don't have to prep for that! The only one more week following, and I'll be done with my semester!! Woohoo! Of course, I only get about a month off before summer term begins, but I'll take what I can get!
In much happier news, I fly out tomorrow evening for Oregon, to go visit Amanda and Tyler, and I am *so excited*. It's been way too long since I've Amanda, and I am really looking forward to it and to just getting away for a while! On that note, I should probably go pack!
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| I'm sitting here sipping a glass of wine at 7:48 a.m. Just survived another Orthodox Easter midnight-party and my feet are OH so happy that I'm no longer standing on them! Cooked from about 11:00 to 3:00. People started arriving around 3:30. Last one left probably around 6:45. Got the dishwasher loaded (and started) and most of the food put away and garbage tossed by about 7:20. Now I'm sitting in bed, finishing my glass of wine. My mother figures we had about 50-60 people this year. And probably 3 weeks' worth of leftover sausage and ham! And some strange things brought by others that will most likely live in the fridge for a while and then get tossed. It would be a lot easier and more efficient to just toss them now, but not everyone agrees with that philosophy. Anyway, at the moment I'll just be happy if my feet stop hurting before a week from next Tuesday.
As it is now 8:00, I suppose *could* put my clothes back on and easily make it to the 8:30 service at church. But I don't think I will, given that I just spent all night celebrating Easter! And did I mention my feet are killing me?? Now that my wine is just about gone, I think I'm going to turn in.
And on that note...Happy Easter (again)!! Christ is (still) risen!!
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| Last night I bought plane tickets to fly out to Oregon to visit Amanda and Tyler...next weekend! We've been trying all spring to nail down a time for me to come visit, which has been quite a feat between my school schedule and their drill schedule (they're both in the National Guard now that they're out of active duty in the Army, and have to spend a weekend up in Seattle every month for drill). We finally thought we could safely settle on the last weekend in April, until Amanda found out that her brother might be home on leave from Iraq that weekend! Plus trying to find plane tickets that weren't $500 and had workable times (it appears that if you fly out of the west coast anytime later than 7:00 a.m., you don't get back to the midwest till evening or later).
Well, getting down to less than 2 weeks prior to our determined weekend, I figured it was pretty much a lost cause, at least in the realm of affordable airfare. But, on a whim, I decided to do some searches yesterday morning and wadda ya know...tickets for less than $300!! For next weekend!! I eventually got a hold of Amanda (takes some doing between the time difference and the fact that she works nights!), she did some consulting with Tyler, went to work and arranged things with her coworkers, and voila, we had ourselves weekend plans! I booked the tickets, and next weekend I will be making my first venture to the West Coast since I was 7, and my first ever visit to the Pacific Northwest!! And I'm pretty psyched to see Amanda, as I haven't seen her since her wedding just over a year ago!! Woohoo!!!
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| A little crazy yesterday, but a good day, on the whole! I scored a track meet at MA after work, which was great fun. The weather was GORGEOUS! Probably about 65 and sunny - didn't even need a jacket till about 6:30 or 7:00 when the sun started getting pretty low. Absolutely the perfect kind of day to be sitting outside and holding a track meet! And I love scoring them. Must be my inner accountant. And I pride myself on my efficiency - I remember when I was in HS, sometimes waiting literally for hours after meets at other schools, while they finished scoring the meets...I have *no idea* what they were doing, b/c it honestly isn't that hard!
I got home around 8:00 and decided I should probably get around to doing my taxes. Ever the procrastinator, I also decided this would be a good time to hook up the printer I got (for free!) when I bought my computer, as my mom's computer (the only one hooked up to a printer) is slower than a herd of turtles walking through peanutbutter (my mom passed that one along to me yesterday ). At 9:42 I realized this fabulous free printer came with everything...except the cord that hooks it up to the computer  . So, with 15 minutes till closing, I scurried off to Target, found the cord (only $10, thankfully!), and picked up several rockin' pairs of clearance socks (I love socks on clearance!) while I was at it.
Finished my taxes around 1:00. Getting a healthy refund, so really it's extra ridiculous that I procrastinate on it, but some habits are hard to break. Jumped in the shower, got ready for bed, and then made two pans of chocolate chip cookie bars (one with plain chocolate chips, one with peanutbutter M&Ms...they're fabulous!) as I was up to bring treats to our staff meeting today, and for German tonight. Finally got to bed around 3:00! Oops...yay for coffee!! *sips*
But yeah...spending a beautiful afternoon/evening outside, getting taxes filed, getting a refund, fun new socks, and chocolate chip cookie bars...really can't complain!
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