The Seahawks Won!!

Final Score - 34-14. Superbowl, here we come! Two more weeks.

Blackhawks for the Seahawks

Today is the big NFC Championship game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Carolina Panthers. As of this writing the Seahawks are doing pretty well. They are up 17-7. Who will go to the Super Bowl? I don't pretend to know anything about football, but when you live in Seattle and the Seahawks are doing as well as they have this year, you can't help but pay attention and say Go Seahawks!

A few days ago there was a little excitement in the office because there were a bunch of helicopters making a lot of noise in the downtown area. Speculation was that it was practice for security for the game or something. But as it turns out, it was the practice for five Fort Lewis-based UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters to fly over Qwest Field during the opening ceremonies of the game.

Sure enough, shortly after 3:30 today I once again heard the roar of helicopters from my desk which is located near the interior of my office building. Those things are loud! I grabbed the camera and ran to get this picture of the Blackhawks heading toward the stadium.


I read that this flight formation involves more than 30 soldiers including eight pilots who are veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Stay tuned for the final game score...

Debt Clinic

About once a month on a Thursday night I volunteer at Debt Clinic which is held in Belltown. Debt Clinic is a part of the King County Bar Association's Neighborhood Legal Clinic Program. Each Thursday night several attorneys who specialize in bankruptcy volunteer their time and take about four half-hour appointments each with people who need help figuring out what to do about their debt. Most clients are at the point of needing bankruptcy advice. Some just need some advice about a particular creditor who is giving them trouble. The legal advice is free to clients, and they make appointments ahead of time through the Bar Association.

What do I do? It's mostly clerical work. I open up the clinic, greet the clients, set up reference materials, unlock computers, shuffle paperwork, inventory forms, stuff like that. One evening about every 5 weeks is not too demanding on my schedule and it's a nice change of pace from my regular job (which can be quite demanding).

It's a good feeling to know that you are helping people, and many of them are very happy to have the free service.

Eye Report

Clay had an eye appointment on the 11^th. The doctor really doesn’t know why his vision took a turn for the worse at Christmastime. The good news is that the eye looks good and there are no signs of rejection of the new cornea. On the down side, his eye pressure had climbed quite high on the day of the appointment. The doctor thinks the increase in eye pressure was caused by the eyedrop he takes to prevent rejection of the cornea.

The eye pressure does not explain the decreased vision, but it is important to get the pressure back down. Therefore, Clay was prescribed one more eyedrop to take twice daily for controlling the pressure. This makes a total of 4 different drops he takes between 2 and 4 times a day each. He has to wait several minutes between drops, so taking them sometimes seems like a full-time job.

For now we are just waiting to see if Clay’s vision will improve and hopefully return to what he saw in late November and early December. I think we expected that after surgery his improvement in vision over time would look something like this:

But instead, it has gone a bit more like this:

Clay’s next eye appointment is in a month – February 15^th. For now we wait.

Pin My New Guestmap

Check out my new guestmap. You will see the new button over in the sidebar. It takes you to a map where you can click Post and enter your location and a note.

For now most of my blog readers are from Western Washington. If it gets difficult to click exactly on your location because of other dots in the way (like my own) just move a little further away and click. No one will care that you didn't aim it "right on."

This is just something for fun. If you feel like sharing your name and location, I would love for you to pin my guestmap.

Thanks!

Northwest Sky?

I count myself very fortunate to work in an office building with a direct line of sight view of the Space Needle. We have offices on the 28th and 29th floors, and if you walk down one of the halls you can look through an attorney's office window and see the view pictured here.

There are times in Seattle where we experience what Clay and I like to call "a Northwest sky." It's when a view may look very dramatic because a majority of the sky is dark, gloomy and ominous with clouds, and at the same time in another part of the sky the sun is shining bright.

Just a few minutes before I took this picture we had such a northwest sky. The background was dark and gloomy as you see here, but the sun shone through some clouds and lit up the Space Needle so it shone bright and white against the dark backdrop. I ran to get the camera, but unfortunately the sun was covered over too quickly.

Still, I like this shot. When I took it I don't even know if I was aware of the orchid in the picture.

Hi to Bill in Glasgow

Clay has a long-time email pal from Glasgow, Scotland. Clay sent Bill a link to this blog. Bill saw that I collect postcards and he sent us this one. How thoughtful!! What beautiful buildings they have in Glasgow. From left to right and top to bottom they are:
- Glasgow International Art Gallery and Museum, Kelingrove
- University of Glasgow
- Glasgow Cathedral
- Glasgow City Chambers, George Square
- People's Place, Glasgow Green

Thank you Bill!

Got Cameron?

I've already posted the Christmas pictures of Nikka and Elena here, but I think we need an updated photo of the lovely Cameron too. Here is a great picture her mom took not too long ago. Sweet!

Postcard from Russia

I just got my first postcard from Russia! There are quite a few Postcrossing users in Russia, but many of them are not very active traders (perhaps because it takes so long to get mail from there to other parts of the world).

This card comes from Katya in the Saint-Petersburg area. According to the back of the card this photo was taken in Tsarskoye Selo's Catherine Park and portrays the Palladian Bridge (Siberian Marble Gallery). Beautiful!

The Drowned Rat Look

It looks like Seattle's weather has made a return to rainy normal. Usually when we get rain it’s pretty misty and drizzly. If you are not going far an umbrella is generally not necessary. But today it rained hard.

This afternoon I left my office (without my umbrella) to get some lunch down the street. It was dry when I left, but before I reached McDonalds (about 4 blocks away) the drops were falling hard. I got my lunch and headed back to the office. It was really raining hard by this time, and I was getting pretty soaked. The water was streaming down my face, and I couldn’t worry about seeing through my glasses. My sole focus was getting back to the office as quickly as I could.

About halfway back to the office something happened to distract me from that purpose. The McDonalds bag I was carrying lost its bottom and my lunch fell onto the sidewalk! Now that’s wet. I grabbed the sandwich – who knows where the fries went, and finished the trek back. That’s the kind of situation you can only laugh at. What can I say … that’s Happy New Year Seattle style!

I told my husband this story, but I don’t think he will believe it until he sees this picture of me as he puts it “wringing wet.”

Eyesight Update

Clay's eyesight had a bit of a setback around the 24th of December. We don't know if it's because of flying or something else. Prior to our trip he had good days and bad days with his sight, but starting the 24th there were only bad days for about a week. It was rather discouraging. He says it seems to be gradually improving now. We can only hope it will return to what he calls "the good eyesight" he experienced on the best days in November and December. He returns to the doctor on the 11th for a checkup. For now we wait.

Santa Stamp

I got a postcard from Portugal the other day. I thought this was the cutest idea. The sender put the postcard inside an envelope, but on the postcard itself where the stamp would be she glued a small wooden Santa figurine. Too cute!

Christmas in Florida

We had a good time in Florida celebrating Christmas with Clay’s family. It was really great to see everyone. All the kids were there, and Clay’s mother too. The Rusty Scotts have a beautiful home and took good care of us while we were there. Santa was also very good to us.

Of course in Seattle we are used to having chilly weather for Christmas, so spending the holiday in Florida was a little different. On Christmas Day it was 81 degrees, and I remember sitting by the pool with a soft breeze blowing. As you can imagine all the palm trees were lighted for the holidays.

On Christmas Eve we went to a beautiful candlelight service that was quite a production. Then we came home and took a bunch of family photos while we had everyone together in their nice clothes.

Clay’s brother took us down to the beach where I got my first ever view of the Atlantic Ocean. One evening we took a drive to view the large fancy estates which overlook the ocean there, including Donald Trump’s estate, Mar-a-Lago. We also drove down Worth Avenue to see all the fancy shops in Palm Beach’s very upscale and exclusive shopping district.

Our trip home took about 9 hours longer than expected, though. We got home at about 4am on the 27^th. Between weather delays and the holiday rush of people, I suppose it could have been worse. We were just counting our blessings because all around us we saw people who had it worse – mostly parents traveling with small children.

I hope you all had as nice a Christmas as we did.