I love whole-milk yogurt. Super-creamy and sweet. We get the kid-size containers and eat them as treats. Kind of like petit gervais.


Yum.

Let's see, what's new? Brian starts his new job in a week and continues to work on his thesis. Hopefully it'll be over by the beginning of June. I'm doing the Danskin triathlon in August (women's only, sprint triathlon, I will not call it a "tri"). I biked to work today in the rain for the first time. I'm a weather wuss and experiencing the wet, cold commute did not help. However, I did go swimming indoors this week and loved it. It's relaxing and easier than I thought. I hadn't done laps since high school and it's like riding a bike (in 85 degree water, not 40 degree rain).

Oh, and yesterday I flew a plane. Yep. A member of our board is a fabulous, down-to-earth, woman who owns a little plane. It was beautiful and sunny yesterday. She invited a co-worker and I to go for a flight from Paine field (next to Boeing in Everett) to Bremerton for lunch. We flew along the Puget Sound. As we got to downtown, she let me fly from there to the tip of the peninsula near Bremerton (have to fly past Bremerton to avoid flying over the Navy yard there, national security). I got to move the little steering wheel, tip the wings, gain and lose altitude! It's really surreal and feels kind of like a toy. We did hit some turbulence and I don't recommend tiny planes for Cat. We got to Bremerton, taxi'd over to the terminal where there's a diner, had fish and chips and came back to Everett. Awesome!

I got a job!!

Yes! It's true, despite not quite being done with school, and my ever annoying thesis, I am now officially a transportation planner. I have been hired by the City of Seattle as an Associate Transportation Planner on the Transit Team. I am part of the Policy and Plan Implementation Team, which means I get to help with fun projects like Metro's bus rapid transit Rapid Ride, and connecting Seattle neighborhoods with more transit.

I will also be doing what's called transportation demand management (TDM), which basically means fun marketing campaigns to persuade people that they don't need to drive their cars, especially alone, especially to work.

This picture is the building I will work in, the Seattle Municipal Tower. It is the fourth tallest building in Seattle at 722 ft. (the black building next to it is the Columbia Tower Alicia recently wrote about. My cube will be on the 38th floor. Thanks to everyone who's helped me and given me support on this crazy adventure!

Well, now back to the thesis. I will start writing something this week. Wish me luck. Brian

Lost

For the past few weeks, we've gone over to a friend's house to watch "Lost." It's true, we're fans. We started watching on DVD a few years ago and have gotten sucked in. If you've never seen it, it's about survivors from a plane crash on a tropical island with mysterious creatures, supernatural happenings and other inhabitants (the "others"). If you've seen it, why did Sayid reveal Micheal to the boat captain as a traitor? Doesn't Sayid later become a traitor and work for Ben too?

It's a quiet weekend here. Brian is really bearing down for the last few months of his thesis. He alternates between being stressed and super-stressed about it. Graduation day is June 14. Phew!

Hello

I'm a lame, slow blogger again. Sorry.

We did the Big Climb on Sunday. Seattle's tallest building is the Columbia Tower (79 stories more or less). It's the big black building in the photo (on the right). Every year, they open up the stairwells and let crazy folks walk/run up. It's a benefit for Leukemia research. I've been doing the Howe/Blaine Street stairs for a while now and really like it. So we decided to jump right in.

The fastest folks do it in 6-7 minutes. They let one person up the stairs every few seconds. Brian was ahead of me. We both finished in about 14 minutes. Not bad for trying to pace ourselves (1st woman- 7 min, 2nd woman- 10 min). It was waaay easier than I thought it would be. Turns out that floors are smaller than I imagined.

Tons o'fun and not sore the next day.

SPAM

It's bad enough that I get viagra and hot Britney pics messages at work. Now I'm getting SPAM'ed comments on the blog. If you see something that doesn't make sense in the comments ("nice too see you have blog. click here!"), don't click on it. I may have to set up the comments so I approve them before they're officially posted. I don't want to- Freedom!- but may have to.

While Brian was away this weekend, I took the time to replant my "garden." Last summer, I had planted basil, parsley, oregano and chives. Aphids attacked and I was left with oregano and chives. The chives were in rough shape though- most of it dried up and Brian started referring to it as my clumps of grass.

Here's my new garden! I couldn't find any starter herbs so I did one tray of lettuce, some tulips and some hyacinths.


Oh, and we're being run out of our apartment by spider plants. Good grief.

Brian and I went on separate snowshoe adventures this weekend. He went up to Mount Baker with some friends (that's Christian in the photo).

I went to Snoqualmie to lead a group of women for work. We did a moderate trip up to Hyak Lake and had lunch at a warming hut on the ridge. It snowed the whole time! Even with our recent warm weather, there's still over 10 feet of snow there.

Let's hope we can get at least one more snowshoe adventure together before the season ends!

I got into the Danskin Triathlon for August 18! It's a women's only race in Seattle. There are many, many Team Survivor Northwest women doing it. I won't get to race with them (can't go in the survivor wave) but I'll be there through out the day. It's a fairly low-key race even though there are thousands of people. It's not *quite* up to the Ironman competitiveness level. More like women learning to ride a bike or swim for the first time in order to do the race with friends.

Updates updates!

Whoops. I've slacked on blogging again.

- Emmy came to visit over President's Day weekend. Lots of fun. We got haircuts (I got bangs!), made homemade sushi (love Uwajimaya), hung out at Gas Works Park, saw a crazy show at Cha Cha and I made her walk up 1000 stairs.

- Speaking of stairs, I'm planning on doing the "Big Climb" on March 16. It's a benefit for lukemia research. You take the stairs up the Columbia Tower, the tallest building building in Seattle. Some people do it as a race but I'll just walk up. It's 700+ vertical feet or about 1300 stairs.

- I had my yearly checkup. This year, because I've hit a milestone, she did a blood test. Turns out I'm anemic. So I'll eat tons of red meat, take supplements and get re-tested in 2 months. That explains the passing out after giving blood and weird heart palpitations.

- Brian is almost done his research for his thesis. Next step: writing the thesis.

- I'm headed to Boulder at the end of March to visit Emmy. Let's see if I can convince her to move to Seattle. hee hee.

What's new with you guys?