I’ve got a good friend who’s out of town and whose two cats I’ve agreed to watch for a while. I’ve always wanted to have cat(s), but I’ve been trepidatious at the prospect of being responsible for keeping another organism alive. So this has been a good trial run. This post will be littered with cat shots; remember growing up how many shots I took of Lexi? It’s awakened again.

In preparation for conference we made snickerdoodle cookies. However I found myself without a baking sheet. The cupcake tin came in handy, and produced a very nice shape.

With company coming over for conference I bit the bullet and unrolled the carpet again.

The next evening was FHE at our bishop’s place, where we had a discussion on the messages delivered at Conference, with games afterwards.

More cat pics.

I got a haircut!

Just in time for Dad to come to town.

So I’ve elected to get Lasik later this month – next week in fact. Went in to get my eyes dilated and checked.

Last night was Elders Quorum game night at my place.

Went on a bike ride this morning with Mary, and the fall colors were fantastic. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to fully enjoy them, thanks to 18-year-old me. Just had to get those Transition glasses before heading out on your mission, didn’t you. Never even wore them in the field either. Now that I’m out of contacts in preparation for Lasik, I get to wear those glasses and enjoy looking like someone trying too hard to be cool. Ah well.

Ciao!

The Chill has officially arrived, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to enjoy the outdoors after work. Got in a good walk to the pier with Mary last week.

Thought of Dad when I drove past this guy:

Last week was Google’s 20th birthday, and our office celebrated with a 90’s-themed shindig.

On Friday Mary and I hit up the Juanita Farmer’s Market, on its last day before closing down for the year.

The following day was a sports day. I’d gotten tickets for us to see the BYU-UW game in the evening, but my friend offered us one of his two tickets to a Sounders soccer match at 1pm, so I picked up an additional ticket and we made a day of it.

At least we got one in before the game was done.

 

On Tuesday Mary and I went with a friend from the ward to a speaking event by one Kacey McCallister, who at a young age became a double amputee. He now does Spartan races and motivational speaking. We heard him speak at our WAYSAC conference earlier this year, and he was great both times.

This evening I went with Mary to this same friend’s place out in Carnation (prompting what I’m sure is a very tired joke at this point on the way out – “What in Carnation?!”) to play some games with her and her family. We went through quite a few – Coup, and Exploding Kittens, tying up the evening with Dominion.

Before leaving her house I loaded up my car with some cat supplies. She’s under the weather and living at her folks’ place, leaving her two cats alone at her apartment. I volunteered to let them person-sit me for a week or so till she’s back on her feet. Thinking of it like a trial-run, as I’ve always thought it’d be nice to have some feline company around here. So we’ll see how that goes.

So a bit of backstory. Some weeks ago I was sitting on my couch late at night, when I noticed some movement on the carpet. I looked across and saw the largest spider I’ve seen since coming back from Australia, creeping its way towards me. I bolted up and told Alexa to brighten all my house lights while I figured out a strategy. I had to go to the kitchen to get something to trap it, but I couldn’t let it out of my sight in case it sped off somewhere and I lost it; if that happened I’d just have to set up a sleeping bag in my car and set fire to my house.

So it’s a Mexican Standoff between me and the spider, for like a solid five minutes. Then he makes a move forward, I stomp my feet to get him to turn around, he skitters towards the dining room table, and crouches beneath a chair. I notice my Resistance game on an end table and grab the top lid of the box. As I creep forward to place it down on the spider, it starts scurrying towards the wall. I toss the box over and it comes down right on top of its target.

I didn’t feel like trying to dispose of it, so I let it sit there. A day turned into three, until eventually Mary came by and I had enough hands to make sure that even if it booked it after lifting off the box I could still catch it with the vacuum.

Unfortunately since the box was opaque I never did get a good shot of the critter, and regretted the hasty disposal.

That is, until today, when I came home to this lovely dude chilling right next to where I keep my shoes. How lovely.

Earlier this week I had a regular visit from pest control and they said it’s normal for spiders to be more active at this time of year since it’s their mating season. A few more weeks of increased spider activity and then things should recede to normal levels.

But until then. Ew ew ew.

I sent my phone in for repairs earlier this month, and it was quite the experience getting by without it. If I couldn’t text/call from my computer I’d’ve been in a much tougher spot. But it was nice to disconnect from everything when my laptop closed.

I delayed sending my phone in as long as I could so I could take pics at the fair, but the unfortunate consequence is that I couldn’t take any at the Lindsey Stirling / Evanescence concert. Thankfully Mary’s phone filled in.

First some preambles. Earlier last this month Mary and I went to a married friend’s place to have dinner and play Joker’s Wild, a.k.a. Jokers and Marbles a.k.a. Pegs and Jokers. He built his own board and I’ve been itching to play for over a year. They trounced us the first round but we came back and took home the win in the second.

On a Saturday Mary and I went on a double-date with my old roommate Michael Shomler and his new girlfriend (and now fiancée…). We went to Subway and swapped “origin” stories, then went to Value Village to buy something silly for the other couple.

Then we busted out some paper and fuzz balls to play Poor Man’s Joker’s Wild under the gazebo.

So that was fun.

I interrupt this regularly organized post with some random goings-on.

…And back to the titular events.

We went to the fair!

So that was a ton of fun. The other big thing was the Lindsey Stirling / Evanescence concert! We figured we’d get there just before it started, at 7pm. By 6:45 we were about a mile away from the venue. We parked around 8:30pm. It. was. insane. Those country roads were not designed to handle the influx in vehicles, and I feel very sorry for anyone who was just trying to drive through that mess.

But the concert was great! As I said earlier, at this point my phone was in for repairs so I fell back to using Mary’s phone.

All up I think we spent like seven hours in the car that evening. Phew.

Other random happenings included a triple-date where we played Settlers of Catan and had bagel-bites

Randomly went to Mary’s ten-year high school reunion at a brewery.

Acted as ushers for the President Nelson visit.

Had a Latin night this last Friday. I made up for not dancing by helping to heat up some food and do dishes afterwards.

The next day I went on a day trip with Mary to the Columbia River Temple, about 3.5 hours’ drive east. Made it to the 2pm session, then did a bit of sight seeing before having dinner at Mary’s friend’s place, after which we played a round each of Resistance and Dominion. Got back around 12:30am.

Yesterday I had dinner at Mary’s folks’ place, as they were pretty exhausted looking after their grandkids while the parents were off to Hawaii for a friend’s wedding.

And that catches me up to now where I’m still at work. We’ve hit a few snags that’ll make my life annoying for the next while. No chance of running out of things to do around here, though, that’s for sure.

Cannot wait for Thanksgiving! I’d love to hike Donut Falls and then have lunch/dinner at Silver Fork like we did that one time. But whatever goes down it’ll be awesome. See ya then!