How many computers does it take to do your taxes?

One of us should probably figure out how to set up a network. Or something.

SMART!

Hello world!  Matt now has a smartphone!

My photos, published.

What's that on the cover of Proud Ground's Newsletter?  Why, it's a photo I took.
 

And on the back?  Another photo first seen on this blog.

My favorite part of this photo is that the cookies were sitting on that exact same table, so I have a picture of cookies on a table sitting on that very same table.

Not so smart squirrel

I think this nut is not sufficiently buried.

Survey

Today, Matt and I were tracked by a governmental agency. You can see how we felt about it.

We participated in the Oregon Travel and Activity Survey, which involved recording our travel throughout the day. We had to record what time we left the house, where we went (including addresses) what we did there and when we left. It was fun, though rather labor intensive. We both thought that even though it was a pain, it would have been fun to do it for an entire week.

We sent off our booklets and will receive a $25.00 gift card for our participation. It turns out we were one of 17,000 households randomly selected to represent 1,500,000 Oregon Households! I'm glad I represented with the bike and the walking today.

Compost! The Musical!

Can any noun be made to sound like a cheesy musical just by adding an exclamation point and the phrase "The Musical!" after it? Shall we try it? The Internet has once again amazed me. "I wonder if there is a random noun generator on the Internet?" I'm thinking as I am typing "random noun generator" And lo, I Googled, and lo there was.
http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWord.aspx

Glove! The Musical!
Allegation! The Musical!
Regular! The Musical!
Reservation! The Musical!
Photograph! The Musical!
Card! The Musical!
Banner! The Musical!
Syntax! The Musical!
Classification! The Musical!
Newspaper! The Musical!
Peasant! The Musical!

I think, yes. The last three in particular sound great.

Did I have a point? Oh yes, compost. Here's a pile that I've been somewhat making. I'm not a very good hot compost maker, but I did attempt it this summer. I would like two bins with somewhat level floors and ideally a chicken coop on top. But I just have yard. So I've been trying to use that.
What I've been doing is filling our official "bin" with kitchen scraps and straw. Then, after that has had a chance to mellow for a bit, I take that mixture and layer it with more browns and wet the whole thing down . When I do this, the compost happens a lot more quickly. However, it's more work than putting it in the bins and leaving it, plus, I don't often have very large amounts of kitchen waste at once. The other thing I need is a compost sifter. I know I can make one easily, I just haven't. Soon.

ps. The random noun generator website is fabulous. Aside from random noun, it can generate a random phrase or sentence or paragraph. And it has a name finder named Monika. Very fun.

Squeak Visits

What are those glowing eyes at the top of the refrigerator?

Squeak, the high jumping kitty has arrived.

He will stay quite a long time and we hope that both cats enjoy the company.

We have 100 posts!

Good job us!

Snow!

Snow at the end of March? Wrong, that's what that is. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

January Flashback--starting out the year with illness.

So we were absent all of January. So here's what we've been doing:


Matt came down with an awful flu that involved two trips to the doctor and more than one trip for medication. I was fine for about two days, when I came down with it too. I went to the doctor once, although by that time I was better. We used Flexcar a lot when we were sick. It came in handy to drive to urgent care and across town, as well as to the drugstore.



I haven't been that sick since high school. I lost my appetite for two days and that never happens. It wasn't very fun at all.

Matt and his cacti

Matt confided to a coworker that he was a ninja, and ever since she doesn't believe anything he says. (The Tualitan Valley Ninja Academy is OK with her telling everyone, because they said it's a good lesson in hiding in plain sight.) Anyway, he also told her that he owned cacti, and she didn't believe him. So here is Matt with his surviving cacti...
(Since 2 out of 7 cacti, plants which require only monthly upkeep, have died, is it really a good idea for him to have children?)

We like games.

We like a lot of kind of games, but the so-called European Board Games are particularly popular at The Orange Door lately. That's our newest one, BattleLore made by the same company that makes Shadows over Camelot, which is my current favorite. We also have RoboRally and Matt bought Ticket to Ride for his dad a few years ago.

Matt was home sick last week and kept begging me to play with him after I got home from work. I finally had time on Thursday and played my first game of BattleLore. I went down to defeat, which was to be expected because you have to play this a few times before you get the strategy down.

Our upstairs neighbor told Matt about the number of Meet Up events where you can play board games. He's at one now, playing. I may never see him on a Sunday ever again.

8 Random Things

Back in October, Shawn and Sara posted 8 Random Things on their blog and encouraged other people to list 8 Random Things of their own. We made a list of our random things which I put on my desk to put on the blog. It was then covered by other important papers and just unearthed today. Better late than never.

1. We are a car-free household.

2. We are big Veronica Mars fans, but have only seen the show on DVD.

3. We are both in the helping professions.

4. We are big readers, though we rarely read the same types of books

5. We have been known to bike long distances with friends, but not each other.

6. We like Shadows Over Camelot, a fabulous board game. Patricia thinks the name is cheesy and replaces the word "Shadows" with other ominous sounding words: "Dark Skies," "Hurricanes," "Dick Cheney," "Flat Tax"

7. We each have a vice that the other can't stand. His vice: Video games. Mine: People Magazine.

8. We each agree that the other is funny but say that "I am the funny one in the relationship" (Though Patricia said this phrase first, so clearly she is the funny one in the relationship.)

Quiet time on this blog.

Matt's gone back to school and my school has started. Summer is most certainly over. I've still got vacation pictures to post, but looking at the planner, it doesn't seem like they will get up there quickly. I'll try and finish a post now and then.

The rains have started, the check book has dwindled a bit and so not only are we spending a lot of time at home, but the increased workloads have meant that we can't tell you regularly about our adventures, or lack thereof.

Things will slow down again, I think. If not sooner, then at least by next June. We're still here, just not here in the blog world.