Snow and Ice in Seattle

We've been having some non-typical weather in Seattle. The last two or three days we've seen a couple inches of snow in our neighborhood and definitely some ice as temperatures dip colder than normal. It was 21 degrees as I waited for the bus this morning and tonight temps are supposed to chill down into the teens in Seattle. Less than half of the staff showed up at work today because of the difficulty in commuting from outlying areas.

It is pretty, though. Here is a picture I took this morning as I waited for the bus. You can see there's a fair amount of ice on the roads and sidewalk. While I stood waiting I witnessed one car accident and one dog-walker landing on her backside thanks to the ice.

This picture was taken last night from our balcony.

If you would like to see more photos of the ice and snow (mostly taken last night) click on either photo and use the Next and Prev buttons to navigate through the pictures.

If there is ice and snow where you live my advice is to stay in if you can, and if not be very careful while out and about.

Thanksgiving With Pictures

Clay and I had a really nice Thanksgiving spent with my Mom, my sister Jozi and friend Colette.

It was our plan to go out to eat with Mom and Jozi in Olympia. A week or so before Thanksgiving I just happened to learn in a phone conversation with my friend Colette (who lives in Lynnwood, a little north of us) that she was also planning to make a trek south for Thanksgiving. Colette has family in Nisqually, which is just about 5 miles from where my Mom lives in Lacey.

Those of us who have driven the Seattle to Olympia stretch on Thanksgiving know that it can easily take twice as long to drive that distance on Thanksgiving as it does any other day of the year. Colette and I decided it would be fun to carpool. Colette generously offered to drive us in her cushy new van. It turned out great!

As is not uncommon, the weather was quite wet for the drive down. We had one little scare when a car two lanes over suddenly veered out of its lane and hit a car near us. Thankfully we were not involved in the accident. We could only speculate about what happened - was it a hydroplaning mishap? Or did the driver of the errant car have some sort of medical emergency? We hope and pray everyone in both cars is okay.

Colette's dinner plans were later in the day than ours, so we got to have some visiting time with her at my Mom's before heading out to eat. Jozi brought pumpkin pie and we had a little pre-meal dessert. Colette helped us take some pictures. If you click on the photo of Clay and me you can use the Next and Prev links to see the rest of the photos from the day.

Colette went off to her family celebration and Clay and I went out to a local restaurant with Mom and Jozi. The restaurant we chose didn't take reservations, but we were fortunate not to have to wait too long before being escorted to a table. The food was good, and we all ate a little too much. Isn't that required on Thanksgiving?

Colette picked us up at Mom's in the evening and we headed back home. All in all it was a fun and satisfying day. Thank you to those who shared it with us!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to my blog's readers. I hope you had a wonderful day spending time with loved ones and eating turkey and all the trimmings. Clay and I had a great day celebrating like most of you. On Saturday I will be at a computer where I can upload some pictures of the day and I will post more then. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Update Sat. 11/25: Sorry, folks. Here I am in front of the computer I use to upload photos, and I forgot my camera at home! The pictures will be up tomorrow, I promise.

Wild and Woolly Weather

We continue to have some pretty crazy weather here in Seattle. Today we endured a strong thunderstorm which included heavy rain, hail and lightning. In fact my office building was struck by lightning at the same time as the Space Needle. You can see both in this photo from KOMO-TV.

Earlier in the day I noticed very loud sounds coming from outside because of high winds and rain. From some offices it seemed like a freight train was coming through. I understand this lightning was accompanied by quite a thunderstorm. Unfortunately I was busy training at the time and didn't notice the extra noise.

It looks like today or tomorrow will be the day that November 2006 sets the all-time record for wettest month in Seattle. If you want to read more about today's storm and the weather trends see KOMO's full story here.

Autumn Sunset

Sometimes I get busy and don't look out the window often enough. This afternoon a pale yellow light caught my eye as I walked past one of the offices where I work. I looked out the window and saw what I thought was a rather pleasant sunset. Nothing striking, but quite pleasant. I went back to my office to get the camera so I could share the view with you. Then I promptly got distracted with a project and forgot about the sunset.

Several minutes later I remembered that I was supposed to be getting the camera. I thought it was probably too late, but grabbed the camera and headed back to the office window just in case. I was rewarded with a spectacular view.

I turned on the camera but before I could get the picture it told me to change the batteries. Yikes, I didn't have fresh batteries on me! So I turned the camera off and on a couple times trying to get it to cooperate. I was able to take one quick photo before it died.

The camera didn't catch the view as beautifully as it looked to my eye, but I think it came out pretty well. You can click on the photo to see it larger, and if you look closely in the lower left corner you will see a ferry boat there.

A New Toy in the House

Clay got some birthday money from his Mom last month. After giving it some thought he decided to use the money to add a new piece of electronic gadgetry to our entertainment center (big surprise!). The new toy is a Samsung Multiformat DVD Recorder and VCR combo.

I am told this gizmo will do all kinds of wonderful things for us. We can watch our Netflix movies on it if we want. We can use it to record programs from the TV in either VHS or DVD format. We can transfer old footage from VHS and 8mm format tapes to DVD with it. And best of all, it will make a nice companion for our recently purchased digital camcorder.

Now if only I could get it to wash the dishes.... Oh wait. Clay does that!

Short Hospital Stay for Mom

I frequently spend Mondays with my Mom. That's when I take her to doctor appointments and help her run errands. This Monday Mom had a checkup with her doctor. She was feeling great, just a little tired from time to time. As part of the checkup the doctor ordered some blood tests. Before the day was out he was calling to say she needed to come back.

On Tuesday afternoon I took her back to the doctor where we found out that her blood count was only 7.6. A normal blood count is 30, and anything under 11 is considered dangerous. One concern is that she could pass out and that would not be good for an 82-year-old woman who lives by herself.

She had to spend the night in the hospital where they gave her a couple units of blood. In the morning after the transfusions her blood count was up to 32. She got to go home before noon.

Mom is glad to be home and doing well. The next step will be to find out what caused the blood loss. She has had bleeding ulcers in the past so it's possible this could be a repeat of that problem. She goes back to the doctor on Monday to find out what further tests she must undergo.

I'm really glad her doctor did that blood test when he did. Something to add to my "I'm thankful for" list for sure.

Thank You to the Veterans

I want to say thank you to all the Veterans on this their special day. It's thanks to them that we enjoy the freedoms we do today.

My favorite veteran was my father who passed away two years ago. He taught me more about honor and sacrifice and duty to one's country than anyone. My dad was not even a native of this country when he joined the US Army in World War II. He survived the Bataan Death March and time in a Japanese Prison of War camp.

If you know a veteran, say thank you today.

Fall Color

I love it when the leaves of the trees turn bright shades of red and orange in the fall. A couple of weeks ago Clay and I went out in our neighborhood to take some pictures of fall color.

I'm glad we did this before the rains started. If you would like to see more of the pictures we took you can click on this photo to the right and then use the Next and Prev links to scroll through the set.

Aftermath of the Floods

Seattle got 2.13 inches of rain on Monday. The metropolitan area wasn't impacted too bad from the storm but it was bad for neighboring communities with rivers nearby. Some towns are still cut off from the rest of the world because roads are impasssable with water. Many homes flooded, some even washed away. Two people have died.

I can't even imagine losing everything to water like this. My heart goes out to the flood victims. Hopefully it's over and the recovery efforts can proceed without any more rainfall.

Storm Update

It's looking pretty grim out there. The governor has declared an emergency in 18 counties with widespread flooding across the state. The Weather Service declares 7 rivers will reach record severity for flooding. You can read more about it here on KOMO's web site.

The rain coming down doesn't bother me really, but I'm not looking forward to navigating the roads full of water. Tomorrow I have to drive to Bellevue for a class, so wish me luck.

Seattleites stay dry and be safe out there!

A Gullywasher On Its Way

Batten down the hatches everybody, and try not to get washed away! If weather reports are even close to accurate looks like we might have quite a storm headed our way.

KOMO TV 4's web site has this on the front page:

Latest forecasts show a storm coming inland Sunday night and Monday has the potential to bring 2-6" of rain in the lowlands, and over 9" of rain in the Olympics; Flood watches and warnings in effect.

The related story, "Biggest Storm Yet Brings Potential for Major Flooding" can be found here. According to the article this could be the wettest storm in three years.

I don't know, we'll have to see if it tops this storm last January.

One Last Halloween Pic

My little friend Nikka is on vacation in Hawaii. She and her folks left on the 1st. I thought she got away without sharing any Halloween pics, but I was mistaken.

I found this one in her mom's Webshots album. What a cutie! Nikka went trick or treating as a dalmation this year. And her dad tells me Chip (the dog) was going as a cat! I would have liked to see that combination.

Anniversary of Eye Surgery

It was one year ago today that Clay had his corneal transplant and lens replacement. Clay recently had a follow-up appointment with his surgeon and I'm happy to report that all is going well.

In looking back to where he was a year ago, I know Clay is happy he got the surgery. One year later his sight is a little better than it was with glasses before, and much better than it was without glasses. He still has refractions (star filtering and seeing some double images) which are at their worst at night. But we are hoping that with time those things will improve.

Most of all, Clay now has a healthy cornea and hopefully the deterioration he was having in his sight will slow or stop entirely. Also, with the new cornea the doctors are able to more easily see Clay's retina which will make it easier to diagnose any further problems.

The doctor is leaving the stitches in to eventually dissolve unless there is a reason to remove them. A reason to remove stitches might be that in the dissolving process a stitch breaks and the fragment is sticking up causing problems. If the stitches do not have to be removed they can stay in there and could take between 2 and 4 years to dissolve. This is quite a bit longer process than Clay was expecting.

Clay is still taking an antirejection drug (an eyedrop) for the transplant along with all his glaucoma drops, but they are weaning his dose so that hopefully he can stop taking it in a few months.

The eyesight has been pretty stable for months now, so we are expecting any further changes to be minimal. This will probably be the last post on the eyesight updates unless something changes. Thanks to everyone who has wished Clay well in this.

More Halloween Pictures

Every year at Halloween I look forward to seeing the young ones dress up in costume. Some of my friends are really good to me and forward pictures of little ones that I can't see in person.

Thank you to Susan who sent me pictures of her two girls on Halloween. This is the beautiful Felicia as a Spanish Dancer and her little sister Cameron who is the lovely ballerina in pink. Felicia is 12 and Cameron is 2-1/2. Cute!


This little guy is Elliott, son of my friends Doxey and Cynthia. I confess to having stolen this photo from Elliott's blog. This was Elliott's first Halloween (he's not quite 4 months old) and his folks dressed him up as the sky. Note those white puffy clouds and the jet plane passing. Elliott's dad is a mountain climber who does weather lectures, and the cloud and sun props are from his collection. You can see more pictures of Elliott in his costume here.


Thanks for sharing the pics of your adorable little ones, Moms and Dads!

Extra Happy Halloween

Did everybody have a Happy Halloween? I did. In fact, it was a really super day, no thanks to any planning on my part. You know how some (including Oprah) recommend you keep a gratitude journal and list 5 things you are thankful for each day? It's the kind of thing I always intend to do, but never actually get around to. But at the end of yesterday I had been blessed in so many ways I found myself spontaneously making just such a list. Here is my "I'm thankful for" list from yesterday:

• Many great friends. I received no less than 4 email messages from close buddies who always brighten my day when they write
• A fun Benihana birthday lunch which included good food and good company
• A beautiful crisp fall day - such a great time of year
• A trick or treat visit from friends Kristina, Elena and Aiden (see pictures below)
  
• Some excellent news on a work project (a longstanding software issue resolved)
• General Halloween fun times with friends at the office - some people are so festive
  
• Dinner out with my hubby and spying little trick or treaters at the mall
• Candy!

Thank you to Kristina for bringing Elena and Aiden to trick or treat at the office. It was a real bright spot in my day. Here are a some pictures:

This is Elena showing me the cash she got at trick or treat at her daddy's office (Elena needs to give me some trick or treat lessons!)


Here is Aiden saying "Happy Halloween!!"


Even mama Kristina looked too cute not to take her picture.


Thanks for coming to visit!