Your humor for today!

I love watching ice skaters - especially when they are able to be creative with their athleticism. Unfortunately all versions of this video are heavily pixelated. Just leaves for to the imagination I guess.

@home : Springing to life!

You are here! Welcome to our townhome in the community of High Point in West Seattle.

The oak trees have not leafed in yet. This bench and pocket park is across from our front door. It is nice and shady here in the summer.

Today I am celebrating a great success! The first Black capped chickadees have visited my feeder. I have been worried that I would not be able to draw birds here since I am across from a wild greenbelt and there is probably plenty of food for them. I was sitting here at my computer this morning when I heard the familiar call of the chickadee - and then thought, wait a minute, that is awfully close to me if I actually heard it through a closed window (it was 37 degrees this morning). I crawled over the dog in her bed on my office couch on the 3rd floor and peered down to the deck on the 2nd floor, and there was a PAIR of chickadees. One flew off, but they lept coming back for awhile this morning. They've come back for a late lunch and I manged to snap a picture around 3 PM.

The bird at the feeder is blurry. The green glass feeder in the foreground of the sunflower feeder is for hummingbirds. Hummingbirds were the first bird to visit our new habitat. I saw my first one on my birthday in September and they continued to visit through December. I have not seen one in awhile but I brought in the feeder to clean and it was empty, so they probably have been coming all winter (Anna's hummingbirds will overwinter in the Seattle area).

Sprite enjoys being able to get outside for some fresh air. She also likes to chew on the leafy parts of plants.

Ditto for Imp(ressionist Painting). You can see all of the pots have new growth coming back.

Yum! I can't wait to have French sorrel soup (on right). I grow both kinds of sorrel used for culinary purposes, but have not used the one on the left yet. I just dug them up out of my garden and brought them with me!

The delicious red huckleberry has also survived - 4 years since salvage, and its first winter now in a pot. I can' wait to see how well it produces berries this year. We have two plants in two different pots.

This is one of my beautiful hosta pots, but when we brought it with us, all of the wonderful small grape hyacinth came with it. The hosta has not poked up its leaves yet.

Our neighbor Janna, across from us, gave me many plants when we moved here a month later than she. Her deck gets full sun exposure and these plants were dying on her deck. My deck does not get sun after 10 AM or so in the summer so the plants are very happy here. I will need to invite her over soon to tell me what is in each of these pots (there are about 8 pots total).

My Maidenhair fern finally succumbed to winter and I don't see any new shoots yet. But my favorite native flowering plants has sprouted and is headed on its way to showing its beautiful flower head.

This is Western bleeding heart.

Seems some grape hyacinths hitched a ride in this hosta pot as well.

I hope you are getting the opportunity to enjoy spring all around you, too!

There goes my baby (again)

MINI 2.0 makes way for MINI 2.5

This time my MINI is headed off to Rasmussen MINI in Portland by private hauler! Steve’s friend (and boss) Ken is a race cat driver so he has a car trailer and a BIG truck. They picked up my car at Car Tender on Capitol Hill after work, stopped by here for a home-cooked meal, and hit the road at about 6:45. It’s going to be a long night for them! Thanks guys!

Last year, when the engine was destroyed in the flash flood before that massive wind storm (12/06), it went by flat bed tow truck to Car Tender on Capitol Hill. They did a fabulous job replacing the engine, and servicing my car for the last 2+ years (once I was out of my MINI warranty).

This time, it was the transmission (for no known reason, I think it’s just the luck of the draw), and the CVT 6 spd auto manual transmission is *special*. When the steel belt of the transmission lets go, it sprays metal bits all over the inside of the tranny case. My lucky day was Sunday, March 2nd. I backed out of the garage, put it in Drive, and heard and felt a little "splink" sound and the car wouldn't move. (Although the engine ran great!).

I've been a basket case ever since. Although I have to thank my husband for making all the calls, getting the quotes, and deciding the best way to handle it and making the arrangements. What a relief.

Independent shops find it too overwhelming and costly to repair. Car Tender could get a manufacturer refurbished transmission and install it for $8,200 – but our favored dealer in Portland (far superior in service and quality than the dealer in Fife, WA) could get the same part, install it for less, provide a two year warranty – and no sales tax ($6,800). We just needed to get the car down there.

Finding the money to do the work has been the trick. Our economy is squeezing us all, and we are feeling the pinch. Last month we began to focus on getting our financial house in order and cutting costs and trying to find ways to earn more income to make up for a growing gap become money coming and money going! To fix the car we’re relying on cashing out a small IRA we’ve been sitting on for 10 years (as our little emergency egg) and also borrowing money from Steve’s dad. Thanks dad! You are a lifesaver… AGAIN!

I am in a borrowed car (thanks Lisa!!) so able to work. We’re hoping to go and pick up the car in Portland and drive back on the 22nd.

My MINI has a practically new engine (only 17k miles since it was installed Jan 07), and it will have a good-as-new transmission. Looks like I am going to have a mostly new MINI! I will be hanging on to this car for a very long, long time!

Thanks for all your kind thoughts and helpful suggestions over the last couple of weeks!

You can read my post from my blog last year Random Acts of Mother Nature, MINI 1.0 makes way for MINI 2.0

Thriller dance on the tube - Michael Jackson thriller

Picked up from the Seattle PI this morning, this makes me smile. This also reminds me of the scene from "Going on 30" with Jennifer Garner and how she livens up the boring ol' office party.

Remind yourself - most of the dancers in the video WERE NOT EVEN BORN when Thriller was first released.

'Thriller' zombies on the rise
"To increase public awareness of the 25th-anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" -- released last month and selling slowly -- record label Sony BMG has staged zombie dances in unexpected places. According to The New York Times, on the London Underground "stony-faced passengers rose at random and burst into the jerky slide kick" from the gloved one's famous video. Then they sat back down as if nothing had happened. The surreal incident, as well as similar staged viral marketing scenes in Copenhagen and Sydney, went out over YouTube, and together they've been viewed more than a million times."

This is the London video.

Conscious Choice: Tiffany & Co.

Natural Health Magazine points out - but I also learned this when I visited Tiffany & Co. in New York City over New Year's weekend this year - mining for gold, silver, and diamonds digs up land and generates more toxic waste than any other U.S. industry, according to the EPA.

Tiffany & Co. has been taking a greener approach: It gets most of its gold and silver from one site in Utah without using cyanide-a chemical that separates metal from rock and can contaminate waterways. The company also banned coral from its jewelry to help preserve fragile reefs, and since 2003, it has sold only certified conflict-free diamonds.

I came home with quite a nice booklet along with my Tiffany's Signature ring, which you can read about on my blog here.

Natural Health Magazine does a regular column called Conscious Choice, and you can see more topics here.